Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

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WASHINGTON, July 19, 2002 – Adrian Cronauer, loosely portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam," recently returned where he made that greeting famous as a disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam War.

Cronauer was again on official duty in the city he knew as Saigon – now called Ho Chi Minh City – more than 35 years later.

The former Air Force announcer, now an assistant to the director of the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, was part of a delegation visiting sites in Southeast Asia where Americans are searching for missing servicemen. He wanted to see first-hand what members of the Joint Task Force for Full Accounting do in their quest for remains.

While he has read the reports and seen the briefings, Cronauer said it's different when you see it. "When I'm talking to veterans and families, I want to be able to say, 'I'm not just telling you what they told me, I've seen it for myself,'" he said.

From Cronauer's bio on Wikipedia:
Adrian Cronauer (September 8, 1938) is a radio disc jockey from the United States.

He is best-known as the inspiration for the Robin Williams film, Good Morning, Vietnam. Cronauer co-authored the original story for Good Morning, Vietnam! A subsequent special program on National Public Radio about the role of military radio in Vietnam earned Cronauer a 1992 Ohio State Award and two 1991 Gold Medals from the New York Radio Festival.

Cronauer is now Special Assistant to the Director of the POW/MIA Office at the Department of Defense. Before his government service began in 2001, he was Senior Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Institute, a trustee of the Virginia War Memorial, a member of the Board of the National Vietnam Veterans Coalition.

He frequently speaks before colleges, universities, veterans, social, legal, and business groups. In 1992, he was invited to Australia to participate in the dedication of that country’s Vietnam Forces National Memorial. While there, he emceed a four-hour, nationally televised, outdoor concert featuring Aussie entertainers who went to Vietnam during the 60’s and 70’s to entertain the troops from "Down Under." Cronauer periodically appears as a guest on radio and television talk shows, including NBC-TV’s Today, ABC-TV’s late night talk show, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, the PBS series, Freedom Speaks, NBC Radio’s Jim Bohanan Show, and the Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy radio programs.

Production Notes via Barry Levinson.com:
"It's not necessarily the situation that has to be funny, but what the characters do and say in the situation that produces laughter," comments Levinson. "The humor in 'Good Morning, Vietnam' stems from Robin Williams' characterization of a radio D.J. and his outrageous behavior on the air."

Adds Robin Williams, "I thought the script made a great effort to show the Vietnamese as people rather than 'the enemy.' They have families and needs ... they laugh and play and are afraid, just like everyone else."

Although Levinson and Williams had not met before, both felt that Williams' talent for improvisation would mesh perfectly with Levinson's well-established reputation as a writer/director of engaging ensemble comedies.

"This is the perfect role for Robin," says producer Mark Johnson, who also takes to the boards in "Good Morning, Vietnam" as Adrian Cronauer's compatriot Sloan. "Nobody else works with the inventiveness, the quickness and the zaniness of Robin Williams. When he sat down in the control booth to do the scenes involving Cronauer's broadcasts, we just let the cameras roll. He managed to create something new for every single take."

Of his character in the film, Williams explains, "At the beginning of the film, Cronauer is a victim of culture shock... one day he is in Crete, where all the women look like Zorba, and then BAM, he's in oppressively hot Southeast Asia, surrounded by hard-core military types. I actually think this character is pretty much the closest thing to me that I've ever done."

In the role of Garlick, Cronauer's dutiful sidekick, is Forest Whitaker, a second generation performer who caught director Levinson's eye with his excellent performance in the Touchstone drama, "The Color of Money."

"Forest possesses such sincerity and honesty that I knew he would be perfect for the part," reflects Barry Levinson. "His genuineness contributed greatly to the important dynamic that exists in the film between Garlick, who is always concerned about Cronauer and the disc-jockey himself, who is a bit of a wild man."

"Garlick's the kind of guy who'll give you the shirt off his back. He'll make sure you're okay before he's okay," sums up Whitaker.

Gregarious saloon owner Jimmy Wah is portrayed in the film by Vietnamese native Cu Ba Nguyen. An ex-military prisoner who once staged a daringly dramatic escape from war-torn Cambodia, Nguyen was working at a convenience store in his adopted home of Houston, Texas when casting agents approached him about appearing in Levinson's film.

One of the most poignant elements in "Good Morning, Vietnam" is the relationship that develops between Adrian Cronauer and Trinh, the Vietnamese girl who captivates the outgoing disc-jockey with her beauty and shyness. As captured by Levinson, the scenes between Cronauer and the young woman serve as a sensitively-drawn framework around a picture of growing ugliness and violence.

Locating the proper actress to play Trinh was of utmost importance to director Levinson and his production team. After interviewing hundreds of girls, the director and producer were impressed by 23-year-old actress Chintara Sukapatana. Little did they realize at the time that their first choice for the part was actually Thailand's leading actress and recipient of her country's "Oscar" for Best Actress.

In working together on "Good Morning, Vietnam," Robin Williams and his lovely co-star, like their celluloid counterparts, learned to communicate with each other without the benefit of a shared language.

"Chintara spoke very little English, and I don't speak a great deal of Thai," remarks Robin, "so we developed a nonverbal rapport. She is a very gentle yet disciplined actress."

Rounding out the cast is a quartet of actors who are alumni of Levinson's previous film "Tin Men;" Bruno Kirby, J.T. Walsh, Richard Portnow and Ralph Tabakin lend their considerable talents and professionalism to "Good Morning, Vietnam" as Cronauer's fellow servicemen.

The ease and familiarity which marks this troupe's on-screen work is a prime example of director Levinson's heralded ability to endow group scenes with a rare naturalness and spontaneity.

"Barry allows the cast to be creative; he listens to our ideas," enthuses Kirby. "He encourages actors to jump over lines, interrupt each other, even fluff words. This approach leaves the audience with the feeling that they are eavesdropping on a bunch of real guys."

In discussing his flair for bringing a fresh sense of improvisation to his films Levinson explains, "There are two important things to remember when one is working with an ensemble of actors. The first and most important thing is to have the actors spend time together so that they can develop a rapport. Inevitably the bonds they establish will translate to the screen."

"The second key is to do the entire movie on location so the actors will have a sense of place."

Stepping off the plane in Bangkok, where principal photography on "Good Morning, Vietnam" took place, both the cast and the British-American crew had an immediate "sense of place," as the temperature registered near 110 degrees.

In looking for a suitable location to film "Good Morning, Vietnam" Levinson and Johnson, accompanied by production designer Roy Walker, explored many possible sites before settling on the bustling capital.

"Our most important consideration was to find a place that could double as 1965 Saigon," recalls Walker. "I had worked in Thailand four years previous on 'The Killing Fields,' so I knew that Bangkok would fit the bill."

As "Good Morning, Vietnam" takes place two decades ago, one of Walker's first tasks was to import vintage props and materials.

Among the period items that appear in the film are mid-sixties jet planes, teletype machines and taxis, the latter of which had to be recreated from original fiberglass molds.

"There is no stock footage in 'Good Morning, Vietnam,'"emphasizes Mark Johnson. "Everything in the film, including the montage sequences that resemble old newsreel material was created especially for this movie."

In addition to transforming the Bangkok meteorological station into military headquarters and dormitories, Walker also designed the bustling R and R establishment, Jimmy Wah's.

"I wanted the nightclub to reflect the growing influx of Western ideas into Vietnamese life, circa 1965. One example of this trend can be seen in the kind of suits that Jimmy Wah wears in the film -- they are flashy and glitzy and they reveal Jimmy's perceptions about the way Western Europeans dress. Similarly, the club echoes the clashing cultural mores of its customers."

While shooting in Bangkok, many local citizens were introduced to the rigors of moviemaking when director Levinson decided to use them as extras in several instances.

His native acting company can be seen as students in Cronauer's rather unorthodox English class.

"Even though they really didn't understand much of what he was saying to them, Robin had the entire group in stitches," recalls Levinson. "They had the time of their lives and so did we. When I look back at our time in Bangkok, I am most pleased with the scenes that involve the locals, none of whom had ever seen a movie camera before."

During breaks on the set, Robin Williams, an expert mimic who is always eager to learn new dialects, enjoyed impromptu language lessons from the day extras.

"I learned how to call a taxi and order lunch ... but it was tricky sometimes. Their language is tonal and often the same word can mean either 'bread,' or 'water buffalo.'"


It was great to make this film in Thailand," continues the actor. "Everyone was wonderful to us and very supportive...and they seem to have a fondness for golf carts," he adds, referring to the colorful tuk-tuk vehicles that speed through the streets of Bangkok.

For the final week of shooting, the "Good Morning, Vietnam" unit moved to Phuket, a lush tropical island located at the Southern tip of Thailand. It was in the remote area that Roy Walker and his associates built the Vietnamese village that appears in the film as Tuan and Trinh's home.

Unaware of how fertile the land was, Walker and his coworkers planted a rice field in the area surrounding their constructed community of huts. The rice grew in so quickly though, that the "Good Morning, Vietnam" team had to harvest the crop and replant before shooting could begin.

"'Good Morning, Vietnam' is not an easy film to label," concludes Mark Johnson. "Audiences will discover that although it is set against a serious backdrop, it has great humor. I find the co-existence of these two elements in one movie to be very exciting."

1987 Vincent Canby review via New York Times:
THE time of ''Good Morning, Vietnam'' is 1965. Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams), an Armed Forces Radio disk jockey previously stationed in Crete, lands in Saigon to breathe a little life into the local programming. Until Cronauer's arrival, the AFR Saigon station has depended largely on the music of Mantovani and Percy Faith and helpful hints on how to withdraw books from the Army's lending libraries, interrupted from time to time by sanitized newscasts.

Though behind-the-lines sabotage is on the rise, and huge numbers of additional troops are arriving daily, the programming of the Saigon station reflects a prescribed sunniness that has less to do with the increasingly grim reality of Vietnam than with that of a giant rec room for pre-teens of the 1950's. At the top of the charts in this never-never land: ''Around the World in 80 Days.''

Within several days of taking over his dawn show, Adrian Cronauer has become the biggest, most controversial personality in Vietnam. Out the window have gone Mantovani, Percy Faith, Bing Crosby and Perry Como, to be replaced by the raucous laments and urgent innuendoes of James Brown, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Wayne Fontana, among others.

Between recordings, in his on-air monologues, Adrian Cronauer floats down the stream of his own manic consciousness. He talks about sex, the drama inherent in weather forecasts in the tropics, body functions, Army regulations, politics and Richard Nixon, then the former Vice President. At frequent intervals, he conducts interviews with characters inhabiting the dark side of his brain, including an Army fashion designer who's distraught about the material used for camouflage uniforms. ''Why not plaids and stripes?'' asks the petulant designer. ''When you go into battle, clash!''

''Good Morning, Vietnam,'' directed by Barry Levinson (''Diner,'' ''Tin Men'') succeeds in doing something that's very rare in movies, being about a character who really is as funny as he's supposed to be to most of the people sharing the fiction with him. It's also a breakthrough for Mr. Williams, who, for the first time in movies, gets a chance to exercise his restless, full-frontal comic intelligence.

Since making his film debut in Robert Altman's ''Popeye'' seven years ago, Mr. Williams has appeared in five movies, including George Roy Hill's ''World According to Garp'' and Paul Mazursky's ''Moscow on the Hudson.'' Each film has had its endearing moments, but there was always the feeling that an oddball natural resource was being inefficiently used, as if Arnold Schwarzenegger had been asked to host ''Masterpiece Theater.''

Though Mr. Williams is the film's life as well as its conscience, Mr. Levinson knows how to present the star without exploiting him to a point of diminishing returns. ''Good Morning, Vietnam'' surrounds Mr. Williams with an especially strong cast of supporting actors, including two recruits from ''Tin Men.'' They are Bruno Kirby, as a polka-loving officer who longs to replace Adrian Cronauer as the station's star disk jockey (''In my heart I know I'm funny,'' he says after his first disastrous broadcast), and J. T. Walsh, as a sergeant major who's offended by Cronauer's loose ways with regulations.

Also commendable are Noble Willingham, who plays a remarkably free-thinking general, one of Cronauer's biggest fans; Forest Whitaker, as Cronauer's sidekick; Cu Ba Nguyen, as a Saigon bar-owner with a most singular sexual preference; Chintara Sukapatana, as a young Vietnamese woman whom Adrian lusts after, and Tung Thanh Tran, as her brother.

It's meant as praise for both the director and writer to say that several of the film's best sequences (aside from Mr. Williams's monologues) give every indication of having been improvised, though to what extent I've no idea. In one, Cronauer takes over an English class for Vietnamese civilians and proceeds to teach them the nuances lurking within the most commonplace American obscenities. In another, the disk jockey is suddenly confronted by his public in the persons of a truckload of soldiers heading into combat.

The Guardian interviews Barry Levinson:

AW:...Difficult stars, people who are incredibly demanding. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the process of working with those stars and what's the secret, in your terms of actually managing that?

BL: I don't know. Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I've not found that to be the situation. All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that's what ultimately works the best for me. So they can't just do anything, but within this kind of controlled freedom is where I basically try to function really. A lot of time mistakes are very interesting - you look for the behaviour that's not the one you expect. It's the moment that you don't expect, it's the moment that in an audience that you think "Oh, that's interesting. How did that happen. Oh, I like that". It's those moments, those odd moments that you look for and sometimes by creating this kind of loose atmosphere you find those little moments that somehow mean a lot to an audience when they really register right.