I'll recommend two on Youtube you can watch.
Short story is H. B. Halicki was a former stunt driver who wanted to make his own movies. Except like any vanity project doomed to failure, his result is Gone in 60 Seconds (1974). The original, not the Nick Cage one in 2000. (start at 52:00 for a 40 minute car chase)
On a 150k budget, he made back 40 million dollars. This movie along with Bullet (1968 ) and French Connection (1971) were mentioned In The Search for Last Action Heroes (2019) as the inspiration for low level gritty car chases. Remember the car chase from Ronin (1998 )? That was inspired by Gone in 60 Seconds.
Second film is the sequel he did, The Junk Man. (1982). He showed off the big toy and car collection he had as part of the movie.
Halicki would die in 1989 while filming 60 Seconds 2. His estate was broken up but his wife, Denice, has been quite protective of her late husband's legacy. On the good side she remastered both films that he made, even posting The Junk Man to youtube. The down side is she got the copyright to the "Elenor" car design. Meaning that no one can convert a Ford Mustang into it. She's been tied up in court since
2004 stopping modifications but apparently had the case thrown out last year.
Edit: Instead of double posting I'll continue by recommending Ken Burn's documentaries,
The Civil War (1990) and
The Vietnam War (2017) in particular. These two are in the top 10 list on IMDB for a reason, they're well researched with interviews and excerpts that make you feel as part of the history. Like living through it.
The Civil War has taught me alot about the people, issues and warfare involved at the time period better than any class or youtube video could. It does tend to harp on the issue of Slavery. Frederick Douglass is quoted as saying "Agitate, Agitate, Agitate," when asked what a black man should do with his life. And from that view point, he could be correct but it misses the larger issue. The Civil War wasn't just about slavery, it was about the definition of the Freedom America had won in the Revolutionary War. So when someone tries to just say "Slavery" like the
famous Simpson sketch, say back to them, "By who's definition." The slaves who were free, the North who Lincoln turned a war of states rights into the 13th and 14th amendments. Or the South, who didn't want to be held by the powers in Washington and had to rebuild much of their country after Sherman's March to the Sea.
The 2nd narrator describing the bloodbath is Shelby Foote, the documentery notes him alot. He became famous after it aired, so much so that people called him up because his number was in the phone book. He never removed it because he liked chatting with people.
The Vietnam War is... difficult. I'm reminded of Black Dynamite saying "A child is asking the question (What's a Vietnam?) but it is not a childish question". Because how do you condense the french colonial rule, the failure in US policy, 5 president administrations and the aftermath of all of it into a single series? Well, you focus on the people, just like his other series. Joe Galloway, famous reporter. Vincent Okamoto, famous infantry officer. You've got former CIA, White House officials, draft dodgers, photographers (the one of Phan Thi), anti-war activists, North Vietnamese officers, Civilians on both sides, ARVN Marines. Just everyone who was still alive. And they paint out a long timeline. The first episode is 1856 to 1946, French Indo-Chinese rule right uptill the first war right after WW2 when the French wanted their Pacific holdings back. It is a slow story over 18 hours and it paints quite the picture of presidents passing the buck, of military only using body count and chemical weapons for success the toll it was taking on the Vietnamese people and the mess afterwards of the US leaving and the collapse of South Vietnam.
If there are any negatives it'd be two I think. First is the contributions to the story. It's very America focused, yet it does mention that South Korea, Australia and Thailand and the Philipines all sent troops. The SK sent over 300k, which was 2/3rds of what the Americans had at it's hight in 1968 with 543k. There are no Aus or Korean vets interviewed and I feel that's a missed oppitunity to allies who did help them. Australia for instance has
this documentery from 2006 going over their engagement at Long Tan, a famous battle to them.
Second is it is very pessimistic in it's overall presentation. It does focus on the US Marines taking hills in the DZ only to have the NVA re-occupy them a few days later when they left but when Nixon rolled out Operation Linebacker in response to the Easter Offensive, that killed 100k NVA troops. Entire divisions shattered because the NVA leadership thought they could finally fight in the south against the Americans and ARVN conventinally. What should be a major victory for America is kind of brushed aside. Same with America's expeditions over the Cambodian border, this would encourage the Khmer Rouge to take power under Pot but that's something I only learned while following up the aftermath of all this. It focuses very much on the anti-war sentiment and by the end of the series you will hate hippies as much as Cartman.
It is well worth a watch. If you're not feeling something when all the vets talk about the Memorial in Washington, then you're tougher than I am.
I do want to give a warning about both though. It does show dead bodies. The Civil War shows Union troops held at the Andersonville prison camp
, images that would look familiar to anyone who's seen Ken Burn's documentery on WW2 and the concentration camps there. The Vietnam War shows colored footage of the execution of Nyguyen Van Lem
, Phan Thi Kim Phuc on fire as a little girl and the aftermath of the My Lai massacure, in which a squad of US soldiers slaughtered 407 South Vietnamese civilians.
It got so bad that a chopper pilot put his OH-23 down between a group of civvies and soldiers and told his chopper gunners to open fire if they came closer. I'm not often affected by war footage but My Lai has stuck with me since I saw it months ago.
The only person charged after the cover up died back in April but no one found out till late July.
