Line #27 Film/RedZoneCuba


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Red_Zone_Cuba_video_2212.jpg]]
2
3	->''"Night train to Mundo Fine\
4	Night train to the end\
5	Running hard and running fast\
6	To meet my future and away from my past\
7	Taking that gamble that cannot last\
8	Night train to the end"''
9	-->-- '''Creator/JohnCarradine''', "Night Train To Mundo Fine"
10
11	''Red Zone Cuba'', also known as ''Night Train to Mundo Fine'', is a 1966 American drama film directed by Creator/ColemanFrancis, who also wrote and co-produced the film, and played the starring role. The movie is about... well, it's hard to say really. The best summation we could say is that it follows the meandering adventures of an escaped convict, Griffin, and two ex-convicts he recruits along the way as they become involved in the 1961 UsefulNotes/BayOfPigsInvasion, and a quest to find a hidden treasure in a tungsten mine.
12
13	''Red Zone Cuba'' was Coleman Francis's final film as director, and his only starring role; in the other two films he helmed, ''Film/TheSkydivers'' and ''Film/TheBeastOfYuccaFlats'', he limited his acting to cameos. Creator/JohnCarradine receives fourth billing in the credits, and was prominently featured in advertising and promotional material for the film, but he only appears briefly, during a framing sequence at the beginning of the film. Carradine also sings the film's opening theme song, "Night Train to Mundo Fine" (pronounced "Finé"), performed by Ray Gregory and the Melmen.
14
15	In 1994, the film was brought out from obscurity when it was featured as an episode of the movie-mocking television series ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', and since then it has become widely considered as one of the worst movies ever made. For the ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' version, please go to the [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E19RedZoneCuba episode recap page]].
16	----
17	!!Red Tropes Cuba:
18
19	* {{Acrofatic}}: Griffin is capable of surprising athleticism despite being overweight.
20	* AlasPoorVillain: The film attempts to present [[spoiler:Griffin]]'s death as this. Needless to say, they failed and got the [[AssholeVictim opposite reaction]] instead.
21	* ArcWords: The phrase "He [Griffin] ran all the way down to hell, with nothing but a penny and a broken cigarette" is stated in the very beginning and in the very end in a way that suggests a huge significance. Griffin is seen smoking heavily throughout the movie, and the penny (which he stole from the diner) could play into his goal of getting rich. Still, it's not nearly as intriguing as the movie seems to think it is.
22	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In real life, the ground troops at the Bay of Pigs were almost exclusively Cuban exiles, and spent several months training in Guatemala. Chastain at least is said to be the grandson of Cuban exiles, but most of the other soldiers look like whitebread Americans, and (judging by Griffin's experience) ''received maybe ONE DAY of training''.
23	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Apparently the entire process of enlisting, completing training, and being deployed on a top-secret mission only takes 24 hours. Moreover, the [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks US Army]] is willing to enlist {{hobos}}, some of whom have criminal records.
24	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Even though Griffin's death at the end was supposed to be an AlasPoorVillain moment, he had done so many heinous things prior that it's impossible to feel any sympathy for him.]]
25	* AuthorAppeal: Coffee, vigilantism, death, misery, light aircraft, death, misery, the "Yucca Mountain" location (probably somewhere in San Bernardino County, California), death, misery, coffee, big breasts aimed at the camera, death, misery, coffee -- it must be a Coleman Francis film!
26	* BananaRepublic: Cuba is portrayed as this, which makes sense considering this is the way the U.S. government's propaganda portrayed Cuba at the time.
27	* BeenThereShapedHistory: Subverted. Griffin and company participate in the UsefulNotes/BayOfPigsInvasion... but are captured almost immediately, and end up having no impact on the invasion one way or the other.
28	* BigBad: Griffin himself is the VillainProtagonist of the movie, and the plot concerns him and his [[CoDragons two ex-convict allies]] attempting to get rich, victimizing innocent people all the way.
29	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Griffin is gunned down and killed, and his two "friends" are both arrested. Chastain, meanwhile, is revealed to be alive and well and is reunited with his wife.]] Then again, considering the worst antics the three vagrant criminals get into, a somewhat DarkerAndEdgier version of a HappyEnding would be more accurate.
30	* BookDumb: Cherokee Jack, if the horrid spelling on his sign is any indication.
31	* BookEnds: ''Red Zone Cuba'' begins and ends with the phrase "ran all the way to hell."
32	* TheCameo: Creator/JohnCarradine, who only appears in one scene at the very beginning of the movie, and also he sings the theme song ("Night Train to Mundo Fine"). Despite this he is listed as a "guest star."
33	* ChronicVillainy: Griffin announces his intention to "go legit" less than thirty seconds before whipping one of his friends with a belt and robbing him. He seems incapable of passing up the opportunity to commit ''any'' crime, [[StupidEvil even when the act could not possibly benefit him in any way]]. His response to seeing a man with a blind daughter is to throw the man down a well and rape the daughter. And still he wonders why he can't go legit...
34	* CoversAlwaysLie: John Carradine's character does not share any screen time with any of the main characters. Covers that do appear to show him with Griffin or Landis are actually just behind-the-scenes photos of Carradine with Coleman Francis and Anthony Cardoza during filming.
35	* DangerousDeserter: Our three "heroes", after their escape from Cuba.
36	* DiabolicalMastermind: Griffin, supposedly. He supposedly pulled off a somewhat clever scheme before the movie began, selling off a massive load of cotton only to steal it back and sell it again. Then again, it clearly wasn't that clever since he got caught, and nothing we see him do on screen is anywhere near that smart.
37	* DidNotThinkThisThrough: A regular theme underlining all the antics of Griffin's crew, but the capstone example is when they end up somewhat inadvertently joining the Bay of Pigs invasion.
38	* DoItYourselfThemeTune: John Carradine is not only a "[[TheCameo guest star]]" but he also sings the theme song, "Night Train to Mundo Fine."
39	* EconomyCast: Practically every actor whose character dies gets resurrected as another. In one case, a dead soldier comes back as a member of the firing squad who killed him! Cherokee Jack also shows up as one of Castro's aides.
40	* TheEeyore: The restaurant owner. Being murdered by Griffin was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.
41	* FailedASpotCheck:
42	** The state trooper who notes there is a $5000 bounty on Griffin's head fails to notice Cook telling Landis, "Griffin will ''kill'' ya!" Even if he couldn't hear the loud whisper a few feet away, he fails to notice him ''whispering at all''?
43	** During the Bay of Pigs invasion, Griffin and crew are surprised (and captured) by an enemy soldier who emerges from the outhouse ''right next to them''.
44	** One of the prisoners keeps a huge painting (of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Virgin Mary and Jesus]]) under his blanket in the Cuban POW camp. How the Cuban guards missed this stretches belief a lot.
45	* FatBastard: Griffin. As the various entries on this page show, he is not exactly a nice man, and he is grossly overweight.
46	* FauxlosophicNarration: It's a Coleman Francis film. It's inevitable.
47	-->'''Narrator:''' He ran all the way to hell, with a penny and a broken cigarette.
48	* FramingDevice: The whole movie is a flashback being told by the driver of a train that the trio briefly rode on. How he knew all the details of their story (or even knew they were there at all, considering he tells a reporter that he never saw them) is left to the viewer's imagination.
49	* GainaxEnding: [[spoiler:"Griffin, he ran all the way to hell... with a penny and a broken cigarette."]]
50	* GroinAttack:
51	** The dog, on itself, on the barb wire fence.
52	** Griffin mashes a fellow enlistee's face on his knee, but thanks to the angle and the blocking, it looks like he is shoving the man's face into his ''crotch'' to knock him out. To be fair, the man is probably grateful he didn't choose the latter.
53	* HairTriggerTemper: Griffin, who seems ready to completely lose his shit at the drop of a hat. Most notably, he strangles one of his friends for simply saying he read about his wife in a newspaper... and said friend didn't even realize the woman ''was'' his wife!
54	* TheHeroDies: For certain values of [[VillainProtagonist "hero"]]. The movie ends with the protagonist, Griffin, shot dead.
55	* HollywoodDarkness: Several "night" scenes, for example in the Cuban POW camp, are clearly shot in the daylight.
56	* InformedAbility: It is hard to believe Griffin could be a magnate of ''anything'', much less "The Cotton King of the South". Then again, he's such a sociopath that his claims to be a magnate were probably BlatantLies.
57	* LadyOfWar: The Cuban guard that Tom Servo identified as Patty Hearst and "[[Series/TheDickVanDykeShow Laura Petrie]]: Revolutionary".
58	* LaserGuidedKarma:
59	** After murdering a diner owner who noted that his business was failing, Griffin checks the cash register and finds only a single penny.
60	** In the end, Griffin dies unceremoniously (shot while broke and running) for all his misdeeds.
61	* LowerClassLout: At the end of the day, Griffin is nothing but a thug and drifter with poor impulse control.
62	* LoweredRecruitingStandards: The Army apparently recruits drifters and escaped convicts.
63	* MeaningfulName: Baily ''Chast''ain (read: chaste) is the character who suffers the most from the communists (they part him from his mine in UsefulNotes/{{Arizona}}) and shows the most capitalism-oriented attitude in the film.
64	* MustHaveCaffeine: It's not a Creator/ColemanFrancis film without coffee.
65	* MyGirlIsNotASlut: Griffin beats someone up for reading in a newspaper a report that his wife has become a prostitute.
66	* NeverTrustATitle: Contrary to what the name "Red Zone Cuba" might suggest, the Bay of Pigs invasion is only a brief episode in the movie, and quickly forgotten after Griffin and crew return to America. The alternate title, ''Night Train To Mundo Fine'', makes a little more sense.
67	* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Obviously Cherokee Jack isn't supposed to be an actual Cherokee, but there is still no explanation as to why an airplane pilot in the Arizona desert has a Brooklyn accent.
68	* OffscreenTeleportation: Chastain. Last we saw him he was locked up in a Cuban P.O.W. camp waiting to be executed by a firing squad, then he shows up again in the United States, alive and well, at the end of the movie.
69	* PetTheDog:
70	** At one point while driving, Griffin seems to notice that Cook is freezing in their convertible, and he tries (and fails) to put the top up.
71	** The trio initially act nice towards Chastain's wife.
72	* RandomEventsPlot: Griffin meets Landis and Cook on the highway, joins the Army with them, gets captured in Cuba, comes back to the United States and murders a restaurant owner, then tries to go mining for tungsten with Chastain's wife... the only thing tying all of these things together are the characters and their quest to get rich.
73	* ReCut: According to Website/IMDb, this movie has many alternate cuts, most of which involve shortening or removing certain scenes.
74	* RedScare: Like ''Film/TheBeastOfYuccaFlats'', this movie takes its share in the then popular wave of commie scare movies of the 50s and 60s. However, other than parting Chastain from his uranium mine in Arizona, Cuba (the Communists) is rather portrayed as a BananaRepublic. The focus of the story is on Griffin's unscrupulous acts, though.
75	* RougeAnglesOfSatin:
76	-->"CHEROKEE~JACK"\
77	WILL FLIE YOU ANYWHERE ?\
78	RATES – PRETTIE – REASONEBLE;\
79	SIGNED\
80	- Cherokee Jack-
81	* ScareChord: Following "He ran all the way to hell..."
82	* SickCaptiveScam: How Griffin and his cohorts escape their Cuban cell.
83	* TheSixties: The film takes place in 1961. It was shot in 1965, so they captured the mood... fairly easily.
84	* TheSociopath: Griffin. It was probably unintended -- but if it ''was'' intended, then he is one of the most disturbingly realistic portrayals of a sociopath ever put to film.
85	* SoundtrackDissonance: Some scenes are set to upbeat, comical music that doesn't fit the dark tone of the film.
86	* StageWhisper: A downright absurd example. After the sheriff reveals there's a reward of five thousand dollars for Griffin's capture, Cook sharply warns Landis "Griffin'll kill ya!" so he doesn't spill the beans; this is done at normal speaking volume, with the sheriff three feet away and staring right at the pair of them.
87	* StockFootage: Francis added in a montage of marching soldiers, since even he knew that a strike team of four would be insufficient for an invasion of Cuba.
88	* StupidEvil: Griffin seems incapable of ''not'' committing a crime. Not even when not doing so would be the more intelligent option. To no one's surprise, this tendency is a contributing factor in his ultimate downfall.
89	* TheThemeParkVersion: The way this movie presents the US Army. Apparently, the entire process of enlisting, completing training, and being deployed on a top secret mission only takes 24 hours.
90	* TitleThemeTune: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYl_YzcJMKU Night Train to Mundo Fine]]", except the title of the movie was later changed.
91	* UncertainDoom: We see Chastain's wife open her eyes at the end, but don't know if she actually survives or just held on to that point.
92	* UnexplainedRecovery: Chastain, the dying soldier, whose fever is magically cured and [[OffscreenTeleportation somehow teleports]] back to the US.
93	* VillainProtagonist: Griffin himself. The entire story is nothing but him committing crime after crime, or just being a {{Jerkass}} in general, all while (unconvincingly) insisting that he is totally going to go legit.
94	* WithFriendsLikeThese: Griffin frequently assaults his "friends", and they all laugh at each other's misery.
95	* WorstAid:
96	** Sure, a cup of water is the perfect cure for gangrene. In the film's defense, the prisoner is dying and giving water would be to ease the pain, not cure him.
97	** And don't forget to throw the gunshot victim onto a blanket in the back of your pickup truck before driving over a long series of dirt tracks in the desert.

Context Film / RedZoneCuba