Tribes (TV 1970)

A Marine Corps drill instructor who is disgusted by the fact that the Corps now accepts draftees finds himself pitted against a hippie who has been drafted but refuses to accept the military's way of doing things.

Director:

Joseph Sargent

Writers:

Tracy Keenan Wynn, Marvin Schwartz

Stars:

Darren McGavin, Earl Holliman, Jan-Michael Vincent

Won 3 Primetime Emmys. Another 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview:
Darren McGavin	...	Drake
Earl Holliman	...	DePayster
Jan-Michael Vincent	...	Adrian
John Gruber	...	Quentin
Danny Goldman	...	Sidney
Richard Yniguez	...	Sanchez
Antone Curtis	...	Marcellus
Peter Hooten	...	Scrunch
David Buchanan	...	Armstrong
Ric Weaver	...	Morton

Storyline

Among the new recruits in a U.S. Marine basic-training platoon is Adrian, a long-haired member of the hippie generation, opposed to blind allegiance to authority and the complete opposite of Gunnery Sergeant Tom Drake, who is assigned as Drill Instructor for Adrian's platoon. Drake's job as a D.I. is to break down the individuality of his recruits in order to rebuild them as a military unit, and he sets out to break Adrian's particularly contrary spirit. But Adrian's gentle will is difficult to break, and eventually both men come to learn something about what the other has to offer.

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Plot Keywords:

recruit | drill instructor | military | hippie | individuality | 

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Taglines:

WANTED by the US Marines: for AWOL, insubordination . . . and doing his thing!

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 November 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

Je kan verrekken

Filming Locations:

Marine Corps Recruiting Depot, San Diego, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

20th Century Fox Television, Marvin Schwartz Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

In an early scene in his office, Drake's pencil drawing of the dove is smooth in one shot, then suddenly appears crumpled in the very next shot.

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Quotes

DePayster: You hear about those boys in 'Nam, smokin' marijuana? Any of my boys do that, I'll kill 'em!
Drake: What? What are you talking about, you don't have any "boys."
DePayster: Aw, I'll kill 'em anyway.

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Soundtracks

"Tribes"
Words and Music by Marty Cooper

User Reviews

Very good portrayal of boot camp

As an ex-Marine, I was keenly interested in seeing this movie of the week rerun when it aired, I think at 2 am, but what the heck I was on night shift anyway.

First off, I liked it, I really liked it and not because it "took sides" because frankly I don't think it did. A VERY young Jan-Michael Vincent played the part of a spacy draftee quite well and Darren McGavin was his usual excellent self. Parts of the film were filmed at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) in San Diego, with real recruits going through drill training on the grinder. Even though it was filmed at the height of the Vietnam war, politics was left out of the film, but they did manage to show the conflict between the hippie and the more conventional recruits.

The best performance though was from Earl Holliman in my opinion. He played the hard-ass DI to the hilt and provided the strongest contrast to the hippie's live-and-let-live anarchy, even stronger than McGavin's character.

The movie didn't offer answers, nor did it preach about who was right and who wasn't (maybe that was the point anyway, nobody is really 100% "right" in any conflict).