Movie was a paen to JFK and was vetted by the Whitehouse
JFK even chose Cliff to play himself. It was the only feature movie ever made about a sitting president, it was pure PR work
shareThanks for the news flash.
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MovieChat Forums > PT 109 (1963) Discussion > Movie was a paen to JFK and was vetted b...
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You're surprised that Hollywood choose to take advantage of the commercial potential of a popular a sitting president? I see it from a different perspective: thank's to JFK's popularity, Hollywood green-lighted a film portraying the heroics representative of all PT boat crews which have been otherwise underrepresented in film. Take it from a Navy vet who served in destroyers---it takes a special breed to go into harm's way wrapped only in plywood.
shareYou are forgetting McHale's Navy!
I got into this long diatribe on another message board on how bad Kennedy was since he got his ship rammed and sunk. Not that I think JFK was some Audey Murphy, he was no bum either. The Navy was thinking of court martialing him for losing his boat but his dad got him off, according to rumor. So this guy was going on and on how much JFK sucked. I said while he lost his boat, big deal. The PT boats were plywood junk and most of them were burnt and/or sank after the radios and guns were stripped off them at the end of the war rather than waste time and money shipping them back home. Then this guy said that they gave him a boat without torpedoes afterwards as if that was unusual or some punishment. I countered by saying that since the torpedoes were useless in the combat the boats normally got into got into, they stripped them off for speed and to put more guns on them for AA and sinking barges.
Actually, I remembered McHale's Navy and was trying to ignore it... ;-) How many times did Quintin and crew tangle with the Yamamoto?!?
John Ford/John Wayne's "They Were Expendable" (1945) does a realistic portrayal of PT Boats, albeit a bit of a downer but nonetheless realistic.
TWE is an excellent film ... about a great American! TWE & PT-109 keep the memory of the PT warfare alive in our minds!
shareSince the advent of Hollywood ... say 1920 ... the story of JFK in WW2 may be the most heroic and dramatic of any president ... period. Several had distinguished military careers (Carter ... Bush Sr ... Eisenhawer) but nothing like this. So why not make a movie and celebrate a great American ... even if he is in the Oval Office!!!
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