Moonie connection

I was at the premiere of this film, or more to the point- waste of film, back in 1981 at the Kennedy Center in Washington. There were protesters outside who condemned it as some sort of plot by the Unification Church (the moonies). It
was said the church paid 35 million of the 45 million dollar budget. I am not sure what they got for their money other than the biggest flop in movie history.

The real story of Inchon is in there somewhere, but the film manages to make this dramatic military event into a boring and laughable spectacle. Olivier is absurd as MacArthur. The rest of the cast just looks uncomfortable. I met Richard Roundtree at the premiere and he was almost apologetic about having taken a role in the disastrous mess of a film.

Inchon was a risky and bold maneuver that helped the US and its allies drive the communists out of South Korea and all the way up to the Chinese border. Then the Red Chinese army came over the border and drove the United Nations forces back to the present DMZ. It is a story worth telling, but this is not the movie that tells it well. Darn shame.