Trivia / Go Tell the Spartans

• California Doubling: The Indian Dunes ranch near the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park outside Los Angeles stands in for Vietnam, like it would for dozens of film and TV projects in the next decade or so.
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Incident at Muc Wa author Daniel Ford said the film was better than his book.
• Doing It for the Art: The reason Burt Lancaster is in the movie, despite its having No Budget, since he thought it was a great script. When the production started running out of money, he paid for the remainder of the film out of his own pocket.
• Dueling Works: One of several Vietnam films released in 1978, but it was overshadowed by The Deer Hunter and Coming Home. It was released around the same time as The Boys in Company C, which also had Craig Wasson in the cast.
• Fake Nationality: The main South Vietnamese characters are played by Americans of Korean (Evan Kim), Japanese (Clyde Kusatsu) and Chinese (James Hong) descent. But averted with the villagers and the Viet Cong, all played by actual Vietnamese refugees.
• Saved from Development Hell: Veteran screenwriter Wendell Mayes spent almost a decade shopping an adaptation of Incident at Muc Wa around Hollywood, but studios were avoiding any films about The Vietnam War. Finally, director Ted Post worked out a deal for it.
• What Could Have Been: William Holden, Robert Mitchum and Paul Newman were all slated to play Maj. Asa Barker at various points.

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