VLVL(11) College of the Surf

[Dave Monroe]

Not only is Kelly's Heroes (1970) a favorite of mine
(directed, by the way, by the director of Where Eagles
Dare [1968] and written by the same screenwriter as,
now, both incarnations of The Italian Job [1969,
2003]), but I've long suggested that, in the
increasingly cynical lineage of Vietnam-era WWII films
(which cannot help but have been considered alongside,
cannot help but be brought into proximity with, said
conflict, "intentionality" be damned), KH not only
takes the cake, but might well be conisdered in the
lineage of, or at any rate alongside, in proximity
with, GR (1973) as well.  Hardly a "conservative" (or,
for that matter, "liberal") film by the way,
pinpricking as it does the notion of the Americans as
noble saviors of Europe, the world, in the last "Good
War" ((c) Studs TurKAL [(c) Prof. Irwin Corey]), at
the height of the Vietnam War, in which the Americans
in post D-Day France are first seen liberating a yacht
from a French villa and end up striking a deal with a
German tank commander (Karl-Otto Alberty [1933 - ],
see the end of the very great The Great Esacpe [1963])
in order to liberate gold bullion from a French bank,
all under cover of the chaos of the war's denouement. 
Indeed, Clint Eastwood, Telly Savales, Don Rickels
(?!), Donald Sutherland, Gavin McLeod (these two AS
substance-takin', tank-drivin',
shells-filled-with-paint-shootin' ["they make pretty
colors ..."] proto-hippies [?!]), Harry Dean Stanton
(!!), et al. are anticipatory ("GR and Its Precursors"
((c) J.L. Borges) in their motleyhood of the
Counterforce ...

"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying
and selling. The murdering and the violence are
self-policing, and can be entrusted to
non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is
useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as
diversion from the real movements of the War. It
provides raw material to be recorded into History, so
that children may be taught History as sequences of
violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared
for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a
stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to
try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still
here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of
markets." (GR, Pt. I, p. 105)

http://war_words.blogspot.com/2003_03_30_war_words_archive.html

http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/2003_05_25_pynchonoid_archive.html

... but just who "They" are is perhaps THE question
both there AND here, in VL, so ...

--- Toby G Levy <tobylevy at juno.com> wrote:
> 
> Just before the fracas, Pynchon mentions that the
> students were sitting in the sunshine listening to
> Mike Curb Congregation records on the radio.

[...]
 
> A champion of soft-rock with the Mike Curb
> Congregation, he achieved a US Top 40 hit in 1971
> with "Burning Bridges", the theme tune to the film
> Kelly's Heroes. The song was a wagging finger
> directed at hippies....

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