Good Morning, Vietnam
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Barry Levinson
Robin Williams
Forest Whitaker
Tung Thanhtran
Bruno Kirby
J.t. Walsh
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Based on the life of an actual person, the story of an unconventional American radio disc jockey in Vietnam during the war.
Director
Barry Levinson
Cast
Robin Williams
Forest Whitaker
Tung Thanhtran
Bruno Kirby
J.t. Walsh
Robert Wuhl
Hanh Nguyen
Christopher Mangan
Richard Edson
Don E Stanton
Jonathan Macleod
Noble Willingham
Sangad Sangkao
Hoa Nguyen
Danny Aiello Iii
Panas Wiwatpanachat
Lerdcharn Namkiri
Tim O'hare
Uikey Kuay
J J
Richard Portnow
Prasert Tangpantarat
Juney Smith
Floyd Vivino
Boonchai Jakraworawut
Dan R Stanton
Gregg T Knight
Louis Hood
Tuan Lai
Peter Mackenzie
Vanlap Sangkao
Kien Chufak
Kenneth Pitochelli
James Mcintire
Cu-ba Nguyen
Ralph Tabakin
Jintara Sukkapat
John Goyer
No Tran
Suvit Abakaz
Wichien Chaopramong
Joe B Veokeki
Crew
Peter Allwork
Eric Allwright
Dave Alpert
Larrie C Anderson
Chris Andrews
Louis Armstrong
Kenny Atherfold
Frankie Avalon
Clint Ballard
Harry Benn
Henry Brant
Larry Brezner
Denis Brock
James Brown
James Brown
Fred Burch
The Castaways
Joanne Castle
Roger Christian
Perry Como
Ray Conniff
Ceri Evans Cooper
Freddie Cooper
Colin Corby
Fred Cramer
Steve Cropper
Jan Crutchfield
Clive Curtis
Tessa Davies
Rhody Davis
Keith Denny
Louis Digiaimo
Jim Donna
Billy Dowd
Lamont Dozier
Bob Dylan
Adam Faith
Robert Feldman
Jim Flamberg
Myron Floren
Annette Funicello
Len Furey
Marcia Garces
Henry Glover
Gerald Goldstein
Raja Gosnell
Richard Gottehrer
Rodgers Grant
The Grass Roots
Eddie Hall
Otto Harbach
G Hemric
Jon Hendricks
Brian Holland
Edward Holland
Pieter Hubbard
David J Hudson
Ivy Joe Hunter
Lawan Jew
M Mathis Johnson
Mark Johnson
Jack Jones
Philip Jones
Raymond Jones
Jerome Kern
Neil Kirk
Chitra Klunprayoon
Linda Kwasha
Bruce Lacy
Morris Levy
Stu Linder
Lenny Lipton
Michael Lockey
Mike Love
Ruth Lowe
Mitch Markowitz
Allan Mason
Mel Metcalfe
Sarah Monat
Susan Moore
Ben Moses
Fred Nightingale
Alex North
Rassami Paoluengtong
Pat Patrick
Clarence Paul
Bill Phillips
John Phillips
Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett
Michael G Ploog
Terry Porter
Joe Puma
Allen Reynolds
Marie Rowe
Hal Sanders
Douglas Sandhage
Danny Shelmerdine
Peter Sova
Steve Spence
Gary Spratling
James Sprattley
Edward Steidele
William Stevenson
J Styner
Sompol Sungkawess
Kanokporn Sae Tang
The Marvelettes
Bob Thiele
Dimitri Tiomkin
Gerry Toomey
Joyce Turner
Roy Walker
Dan Wallin
Ned Washington
George David Weiss
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Terry Wells
Bill Westley
Gilbert Whelan
Joe Williams
Brian Wilson
Clive Winter
Peter Yarrow
Videos
Movie Clip
Film Details
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Award Nominations
Best Actor
Articles
Good Morning, Vietnam
Good Morning, Vietnam, named after the trademark greeting Cronauer used on his radio show, was immediately picked up by Robin Williams's agent, Larry Brezner. However, the project wasn't green lighted so quickly. "Robin Williams had been attached to the film at Paramount, but they put it in turnaround because they were a little nervous about it," director Barry Levinson revealed in Levinson on Levinson (edited by David Thompson). "It's funny in retrospect, because now it seems such a commercial project. Before we made it, I talked to some people who went, 'My God, making a film about Vietnam, that's like a death wish.' Of course, this was before Platoon and Full Metal Jacket had come out. Vietnam was still considered box-office poison, and not only that - I'm doing a comedy! Nobody could envision how you could do anything that's going to be humorous about Vietnam. I think they saw it as some kind of goody comedy, like Abbott and Costello in Vietnam - a service comedy." Regardless, scenarist Mitch Markowitz (who had written for the M*A*S*H television series) worked on the story and when Williams read the script he decided that the role of the rebellious DJ was just what he needed to showcase the talents he had honed in stand-up comedy.
Robin Williams had made seven films prior to Good Morning, Vietnam including The World According To Garp (1982) and Moscow on the Hudson (1984), both of which earned him excellent critical notices. But Good Morning, Vietnam provided the actor with his best screen role to date. In the biography Robin Williams by Andy Dougan, the actor stated that the film "combined two worlds that I'd kept separate. One was stand-up comedy, the other was acting....In this one I thought I would try to put them together. The character is basically 98 per cent me."
Barry Levinson, fresh from his critical success with Tin Men(1987), was intrigued at the idea of creating a film about Vietnam that did not emphasize combat, but instead examined daily life in Saigon for both American soldiers and the native inhabitants of the city. Levinson also liked the idea of the DJ as the ever-present observer and commentator but admitted that "the real man [Adrian J. Cronauer] was not as funny as Robin. Not too funny at all. Very serious, in fact. He wasn't funny in person or on the tapes we listened to. So we ended up changing about 40 per cent of the script." Wisely, Levinson let the camera roll on William's monologues as he improvised far beyond the confines of the script (all of the DJ sequences were shot in a mere seven days.) "The movie was consciously shot in a pseudo-documentary style," the director also added, "We were just looking for a way to do it, to make the film very loose and free-form."
Like many Hollywood adaptations, the actual story of Adrian J. Cronauer differs from the fictional character that wound up onscreen. In real life Cronauer was inspired by another disc jockey. "I grew up in Pittsburgh," Cronauer recalled in the aforementioned Robin Williams biography, "and there was a morning man there by the name of Reeves Cordick and he sort of owned morning drive-time radio. My conception of what a good morning show should sound like was pretty much what Cordick did, so I deliberately fashioned and modeled my show on that." Once he was stationed in Vietnam, Cronauer tried to duplicate the sound of stateside radio by including top 40 hits with his comic monologues which were usually pre-recorded. However, unlike the character in the film who gets shipped Stateside early, Cronauer served his full 12-month tour in Vietnam.
During the filming of Good Morning, Vietnam, Cronauer found himself sidelined; he had a deal to appear in the film in a cameo, but Levinson decided not to use him. Cronauer recalled some of his frustrations with the production process: "Barry Levinson was a strange person to deal with. I don't know what his problem was, but he became very much afraid of me...The script went through about five different versions - in one version they had me captured by the Viet Cong and put in a bamboo cage, in another I got married to the Vietnamese girl - and I was able to get hold of a copy of each version. Each time I got one I would sit down and write page after page of suggestions for additions and deletions. Some of them they accepted and some of them they ignored."
Although the real-life DJ became somewhat disillusioned with the film's direction, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When the film was released, Cronauer subsequently discovered that he had become some kind of icon in veterans' circles. As he later recalled, he was "told by many veterans that they think it's the first film that has shown Vietnam veterans as they really are, rather than as murderers and rapists and baby-killers, or dope addicts and psychotics. It has happened maybe a couple of dozen times or more that a man will come up to me and shake my hand and say quietly, 'Thank you for helping me get through that.' I never realized at the time how great an impact Armed Forces Radio had."
Good Morning, Vietnam was one of the most successful releases of 1987, bringing in over $200 million in business and providing the director and his star with newfound box-office credibility. Robin Williams garnered his first Academy Award nomination for the film and found his career finally taking off while Barry Levinson moved from the periphery of Hollywood to an A-list director. In terms of critical acclaim, perhaps Richard Schickel of Time magazine said it best, calling Good Morning, Vietnam "the best military comedy since M*A*S*H disbanded. The reason is that it is not afraid to work the extremes. Sometimes it is on the edge of hysteria. At others it can approach the fringe of sentiment. But wherever it stands, it is surefooted and strong-minded - no easy laughs, no easy tears."
An interesting footnote to the Good Morning, Vietnam phenomenon was its soundtrack, a combination of '60's hits and Williams' monologues from the film. The popular soundtrack launched an unlikely revival of Louis Armstrong's 1963 hit "What A Wonderful World." As for the original Adrian J. Cronauer? The film's success not only provided him with a newfound fame, but also paid for his way through law school - to practice media law.
Producer: Larry Brezner
Director: Barry Levinson
Screenplay: Mitch Markowitz
Production Design: Roy Walker
Cinematography: Peter Sova
Costume Design: Keith Denny
Film Editing: Raja Gosnell, Stu Linder
Original Music: Alex North
Principal Cast: Robin Williams (Adrian Cronauer), Forest Whitaker (Private Edward Garlick), Tung Thanh Tran (Tuan), Chintara Sukapatana (Trinh), Bruno Kirby (2nd Lt. Steven Hauk), Robert Wuhl (Staff Sgt. Marty Lee Dreiwitz), J. T. Walsh (Sergeant Major Phillip 'Dick' Dickerson), Noble Willingham (Brigadier General Tayler).
C-121m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.
by Genevieve McGillicuddy
Good Morning, Vietnam
Noble Willingham (1931-2004)
Born on August 31, 1931 in Mineola, Texas, Willingham was educated at North Texas State University where he earned a degree in Economics. He later taught government and economics at a high school in Houston, leaving his life-long dreams of becoming an actor on hold until the opportunity presented itself. Such an opportunity happened when in late 1970, Peter Bogdonovich was doing some on-location shooting in south Texas for The Last Picture Show (1971); at the urging of some friends, he audition and won a small role in the picture. From there, Willingham slowly began to find work in some prominent films, including Bogdonovich's Paper Moon (1973), and Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974). Around this time, Willingham kept busy with many guest appearances on a variety of popular shows: Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Waltons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Rockford Files and several others.
Critics didn't take notice of his acting abilities until he landed the role of Leroy Mason, the soulless plant manager who stares down Sally Field in Norma Rae (1979). Few could forget him screaming at her, "Lady, I want you off the premises now!" with unapologetic malice. It may have not been a likable character, but after this stint, better roles came along, most notably the corrupt Dr. Fenster in Robert Redford's prison drama Brubaker (1980); and the evil sheriff in the thriller The Howling (1981).
By the late '80s, Willingham was an in-demand character actor, and he scored in three hit films: a border patrol sergeant - a great straight man to Cheech Marin - in the ethnic comedy Born in East L.A.; his wonderfully avuncular performance as General Taylor, the military brass who was sympathetic to an unorthodox disc jockey in Saigon, played by Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam (both 1987); and his good 'ole boy villainy in the Rutger Hauer action flick Blind Fury (1988). His performances in these films proved that if nothing else, Willingham was a solid backup player who was adept at both comedy and drama.
His best remembered role will no doubt be his six year run as the genial barkeep C.D. Parker opposite Chuck Norris in the popular adventure series Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-99). However, film reviewers raved over his tortured performance as a foul-mouthed, bigoted boat salesman who suffers a traffic downfall in the little seen, but searing indie drama The Corndog Man (1998); the role earned Willingham a nomination for Best Actor at the Independent Spirit Awards and it showed that this ably supporting performer had enough charisma and talent to hold his own in a lead role.
In 2000, Willingham tried his hand at politics when he unsuccessfully tried to unseat Democrat Max Dandlin in a congressional campaign in east Texas. After the experience, Willingham returned to acting filming Blind Horizon with Val Kilmer in 2003. The movie is to be released later this year. Willingham is survived by his wife, Patti Ross Willingham; a son, John Ross McGlohen; two daughters, Stari Willingham and Meghan McGlohen; and a grandson.
by Michael T. Toole
Noble Willingham (1931-2004)
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States December 25, 1987
Released in United States on Video August 2, 1988
Released in United States September 1988
Released in United States September 23, 1988
Released in United States Winter December 23, 1987
Wide Release in United States January 15, 1988
Shown at Birmingham Film & Television Festival September 23, 1988.
Shown at Deauville Film Festival September 1988.
Began shooting April 9, 1987.
Wide Release in United States January 15, 1988
Released in United States on Video August 2, 1988
Released in United States Winter December 23, 1987
Released in United States December 25, 1987 (Los Angeles)
Released in United States September 23, 1988 (Shown at Birmingham Film & Television Festival September 23, 1988.)
Released in United States September 1988 (Shown at Deauville Film Festival September 1988.)