Tribes

Just to get it accurate I found out back in the day that the US Marines actually did take draftees during part of Vietnam at least. Apparently they would send recruiters to army induction centers like Whitehall Street in New York City and at big places like that would select four or five and say you lucky ones are part of the Marines as opposed to the army. Around the time I was doing my basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, Tribes was popular, so popular this made for TV film actually got a theatrical release.

I was not the most military of trainees, but I was Sergeant York next to Jan-Michael Vincent. I have to ask myself what was that Marine Corps spotter thinking when he picked him? There he was with that adorable long blond hair and that unforgivable fashion faux pas socks and sandals, looking every inch like he belonged at Woodstock.

I'd have had the same reaction that gunnery sergeant Darren McGavin did, someone is playing a joke on me. But it's for real and Vincent with his meditation, his yoga starts undermining the whole platoon except for a few gung ho recruits. He drives McGavin batty, but he intrigues him nevertheless. Neither can understand what makes the other tick.

The one Jan-Michael really drives nuts is the sergeant just above him in rank Earl Holliman. He's got special plans for this hippie freak that McGavin thinks are not appropriate.

The draft is gone now and the Marines probably for their own good as an elite fighting force dropped it on their own years earlier. It was a Vietnam experiment that could really go wrong if a Jan-Michael Vincent got in the mix in a few places.

Vincent, McGavin, and Holliman and the rest do some of their best work in Tribes. One of the best made for TV movies ever done.

As an ex-Marine, I was keenly interested in seeing this movie of the week rerun when it aired, I think at 2 am, but what the heck I was on night shift anyway.

First off, I liked it, I really liked it and not because it "took sides" because frankly I don't think it did. A VERY young Jan-Michael Vincent played the part of a spacy draftee quite well and Darren McGavin was his usual excellent self. Parts of the film were filmed at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) in San Diego, with real recruits going through drill training on the grinder. Even though it was filmed at the height of the Vietnam war, politics was left out of the film, but they did manage to show the conflict between the hippie and the more conventional recruits.

The best performance though was from Earl Holliman in my opinion. He played the hard-ass DI to the hilt and provided the strongest contrast to the hippie's live-and-let-live anarchy, even stronger than McGavin's character.

The movie didn't offer answers, nor did it preach about who was right and who wasn't (maybe that was the point anyway, nobody is really 100% "right" in any conflict).

I haven't seen this since my first viewing in 1970 but I remember the reactions of my peers ( I was 16) very well. We thought it was great! It was wonderful to see "one of our own" succeed against the military that threatened all of us at that time. It may be hard to understand today, but in those times of the draft, the Kent State shootings, and the war in Viet Nam, those of us with long hair or alternative views took pleasure in seeing those reflected in the popular media of the day which was anything but "alternative".

I saw this movie when it came out 35 years ago (has it really been that long?). Most memorable scene was the one in which free spirit hippie Jan-Michael Vincent was forced to hold up two full buckets of water (one in each hand) shoulder high as punishment by taskmaster Darrin McGavin. Vincent turned the tables by meditating on a carefree afternoon spent frolicking on a sun-dappled hillside with a comely young miss. His blissed-out state enabled him to maintain the buckets aloft indefinitely. This naturally drove the by-the-book McGavin to distraction. Enjoyed the culture clash theme. Exemplary writing, directing, and especially acting (McGavin superb as the grizzled DI, and Vincent at his charismatic best).

I am an Air Force officer. I appreciated this movie's adherence to depicting basic training in a fairly accurate light. Placed in the context of early 1970's America, "Tribes" strikes a realistic balance between "hippie culture" and military regimentation. I partly expected the movie to take a sappy turn, whereby the entire platoon converted to flower-power and refused to fight. Thankfully, the ending is far more original, although saddening.

Jan-Michael Vincent acted superbly. Besides the classic 1980s Airwolf TV series, I was never really impressed by his acting ability, until now. Darren McGavin of "The Christmas Story" fame was excellent also, and the two interacted well on screen.

This movie is a fun Saturday afternoon commentary on the tension between the desensitization of military training and the desire to preserve individual values. I voted a 9 out of 10.

Richard Bejtlich