Conversely, throughout its runtime, The Green Berets depicts the Viet Cong forces as inhuman, showing them as faceless hordes who torture prisoners and murder civilians, akin to some of John Wayne ...

In fact, just two years before Chisum, Wayne had made The Green Berets, a movie that irked critics, including Roger Ebert, who called it a “virus” for its outright propagandist tone.

It betters the score of Wayne’s favorite Western, The Searchers, by 8%, while the pair’s other three movies together, The Green Berets, Hellfighters, and Rookie of the Year, are either very ...

John Wayne looks through the camera to check the next set-up during filming of ‘The Green Berets’ on Nov. 17, 1967, in which he is both the star and director.