The Hanoi Hilton (1987)

The first must-see film of the year.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Like anyone else who has seen this film, I stumbled across it quite by accident.I enjoyed it and considered it to be an historically accurate portrayal of the experiences of POW's in North Viet-Nam to the best of my knowledge from other accounts by POW's.I am a Viet-Nam veteran who has always been puzzled by the obscurity of this film. Why was it never released to theaters? I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but I have always wondered if the wealth and power of Hanoi Jane Fonda might have had something to do with the stifling of this movie. If I am not mistaken, I believe she was married to the media mogul, Ted Turner at the time. Any thoughts?

This movie was not good, the only thing that made it even remotely realistic was the torture. I have read every book on Vietnam POW's that I can possibly get my hands on and believe me the way that the American and Vietnamese were portrayed in this movie is far from accurate. Don't get me wrong, the POW's area heroes, and they did the best they could but the didn't walk by each other saluting, or flaunt their chain of command to the North, more accurately they were broken men, many stories tell of the fear they felt hearing the guards keys tingle, there is one moment were a prisoner is being taken out to "interrogation" and he jumps off the bed saying "my turn" like it is some luxury trip. I have no problem with a movie portraying these men as resilient, and brave, but lets stop the B/s propaganda and show how they were shells of the men they once were. It wasn't until the 70's that some of them even saw the face of another man in the very next cell! Its a disgrace to make this movie like they were on vacation, and the Guards weren't bumbling idiots as portrayed in the film. Read a book to get the true story's, and if you must watch a movie watch a documentary. This is just junk.

The Hanoi Hilton is an excellent film, that sadly never found an audience due to the fact it was an independant film with a cast of relative unknowns (except for Michael Moriarity and David Soul). This is a shame because it spotlights the men of the Vietnam war who were the true heroes. The prisoners of war who went though hell for our country. We are spared no details of that hell they went through in this film. It is a terrible story, but one that needs to be told and one we must never forget. One thing I wanted to add, its a mistake that few have corrected. Many people believe that the longest held prisoner of war in Vietnam was Navy Commander Everett Alvarez. He was shot down in August of 1964 and held until February 1973. This is not true, the longest held POW of the Vietnam War (indeed the longest held prisoner of war in American history) is Army officer Floyd James Thompson. I read a book about him called Glory Denied by Tom Philpott that told his heartbreaking story and I want to tell it as well. Jim Thompson was born in New Jersey in 1933. He started out life working in a grocery store and married his sweetheart Alyce in 1953. In 1956, he was drafted into the Army. He grew to love the Army and planned to be a thirty year man. He went through Officer Candidate School, Airborne and Ranger training and became a Green Beret Special Forces Officer at Fort Bragg North Carolina. In December of 1963, Captain Thompson was sent to a then unknown country called Vietnam for a six month tour. In March of 1964 (I wish to point out this is almost six months before Alvarez's capture) Captain Thompson was on a small spy plane that was shot down. He was badly wounded and taken prisoner. Thompson spent nine years in hell. He was kept in mostly jungle camps that were even worse then the Hanoi Hilton. At one point, he had no contact with other human beings for five years. He underwent starvation and horrible torture before finally being realeased in March of 1973. However, Thompson's sad story was in many ways just beginning. He and his wife divorced and he was never able to really connect with his four children (his three daughters were only 6,4 and 2 when he was shot down and his son was born after he was taken prisoner). Although he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, he had lost the nine most important years of his career. He was a Lieutenant Colonel who didn't even have a Captain's experience. He married again but divorced shortly afterwards. Thompson began drinking heavily and even attempted suicide. Then in 1981, ironically after he finally conquered his alcoholism, Thompson suffered a massive heart attack and while hospitalized also suffered a massive stroke that left him permanently disabled. In 1990, he had to go thru the agony of seeing his son imprisoned for murder. Last year, Colonel Floyd James Thompson, a true American hero, died at the age of 69. This was one of the saddest stories that I have ever heard in my life a man and his family destroyed by war. I hope many people read the words that I am writing now because we need to remember the sacrifice of Colonel Thompson and the many like him who were POWs. The Hanoi Hilton helps us do just that.

This movie seems to be a well-intentioned tribute to the American P.O.W.s held for years under brutal conditions in North Vietnam. However, the characters are flat, the attitudes simplistic, the ambiance never quite persuasive. Episodes and characters come and go without much impact. One of the movie's "highlights" consists of a montage-sequence in which a captured U.S. pilot played by David Anthony Smith is subjected to various kinds of torture. Accounts written by former POWs indicate that they suffered "rope" tortures and floggings delivered with whips made of strips of rubber taken from automobile tires. However, Smith's torture shows him being shocked with electrical wires alligator-clipped to his nipples. One of the prison guards then gleefully turns the crank on an electrical generator and Smith begins to writhe in torment -- a sight which prompts laughter from his delighted tormentors. Then the clips are transferred to Smith's genitals, though the camera angle discreetly avoids nudity. The guard again turns the crank and he and his colleagues break into unabashed laughter once more as Smith, his sexual organs now being "fried," dances in helpless agony. Dramatic, yes, but questionable. In his massively-detailed 1976 book, "P.O.W. - A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973," author John G. Hubbell makes absolutely no mention of electricity being used in either nipple or genital torture. One gets the impression these tortures were included in "The Hanoi Hilton" simply because they fitted our notions of how fiendishly sadistic the Oriental mind can be.