Celebrating 42 Years of "Red Dawn"

The Most In-Your-Face, Over-The-Top Anti-Commie Movie Ever

42 years ago today, August 10, 1984, Red Dawn hit the movie theaters. Even then, in the glory years of Ronald Reagan, this film sent liberal scolds scolding from coast to coast. How dare they?

The film had a stormy history. Many name directors turned the project down until badass John Milius took it up. MGM, which owned the property, hired Milius after board member Gen. Alexander—”I am in control here”—Haig seconded the idea of turning what had been proposed as a small anti-war movie into a teenage Rambo. Milius signed up to co-write and direct for $1.25 million plus a gun of his choice.

With Haig’s help, Milius created a backstory in which the USSR teamed up with a communist Nicaragua and Cuba to invade the U.S. from the south and cut the nation in half. The action is filtered through the eyes of a group of Colorado teens who are shocked to see Soviet paratroopers landing in their rural town.

No, Cartman was not among them, but given its Colorado setting, it was inevitable that South Park would parody the film which it did in the 2003 episode “Grey Dawn.”

As the plot unfolds, a pair of brothers and their pals flee into the mountains. Weeks after the invasion, the brothers discreetly venture into town to discover that the drive-in theater has been turned into a re-education camp. There, they find their father a prisoner and learn that their mother had been killed. The dad urges the boys to avenge him, and this they proceed to do with gusto.

Calling themselves “the Wolverines” after their high school football team, the brothers and their friends launch a series of guerrilla attacks against the occupying forces, which respond as such forces usually do with mass reprisals. Much mayhem follows.

SPOILER ALERT: The films ends with the shot of an American flag flying over a plaque on a hillside. It reads, “In the early days of World War III, guerrillas, mostly children, placed the names of their lost upon this rock. They fought here alone and gave up their lives, so that this nation shall not perish from the earth.”

The film, which did well at the box office, helped nurture the careers of a number of rising stars, among them Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, and Jennifer Grey. Needless to say, the critics were less than enthused.

Said Janet Maslin of the New York Times, ''‘Red Dawn,’ which opens today at the National and other theaters, may be rabidly inflammatory, but it isn't dull.” Roger Ebert liked it less. Conceding Red Dawn was the “biggest hit at the box office,” he failed to understand “why the film was so popular.” Ebert gave the film a measly one-and-a-half stars.

In 2008, however, National Review selected the film at #15 among the 50 best conservative movies of all time. Wrote John Nolte, “Oh, no: invading Commies! Laugh if you want — many do — but Red Dawn has survived countless more acclaimed films because Father Time has always been our most reliable film critic.” I might add that NR and I agreed on the #1 pick, the German classic The Lives of Others.

If the movie worked in the Reagan era, Hollywood worthies thought it would somehow work in the age of Obama. By this time, however, the People’s Republic, our new main enemy, had its hooks into Hollywood. Needing an evil invader, the geopolitical wizards of tinseltown changed out China for North Korea, a country with fewer people than Florida.

Even know-nothing critics knew this premise was absurd. Summarizing the reviews, IMBD observes, “The premise of North Korea invading America is universally criticized as absurd and implausible. Reviewers found the dialogue cringe-worthy, the screenplay lifeless, and the film derivative of the superior 1984 original.” But otherwise,,,

Of historical note, in the 1984 version, China and Great Britain were America’s only two remaining allies. This plot point was something of a throwback to World War II alliances and reminded me of my childhood favorite, China’s Little Devils, a Red Dawn prototype.

The film poster reads, ”A group of young Chinese boys are led by an older boy, and rescue downed American pilots from the Japanese army in WW II.” IMDB gives the film 7.9 stars, a reminder that red-blooded boys, big and small, will rally to a film in which other boys get to shoot bad guys.