6. The Green Berets
Warner BrosJohn Wayne was something of a poster boy for the American military machine long before he went on to make The Green Berets in 1968 - the irony is that Wayne himself went out of his way to avoid serving in the Army during the Second World War but would go on to make a number of pro-war propaganda movies encouraging other, braver men to offer their lives for their country. While many Americans were becoming increasingly tired of their military's involvement in the disastrous Vietnam War in 1968, Wayne's reaction was the opposite, and the The Green Berets is his answer to anti-war sentiment; a film which extolls the virtues of military might and delivers a strong anti-Communist message. Naturally he got the full cooperation of the Pentagon, and predictably the movie comes across as pure propaganda. The Vietcong are one-dimensional tyrants while the myth of Wayne the war hero is plastered all over the screen. Fortunately a number of American filmmakers were to emerge in the following years who would shatter the myths enabled in movies like The Green Berets - from Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now to Oliver Stone's Platoon, the cruel and brutal reality of the Vietnam War finally found its place on screen. Needless to say, the Pentagon refused to offer those directors their assistance.