Posted on 08/02/2005 1:18:19 PM PDT by Albion Wilde
After more than 40 wars, Dale Dye knows his stuff--and those are just the battles he has fought in films. The veteran of Platoon , Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers began his military-movie-consulting career after racking up three Purple Hearts in the Marines in Vietnam. At age 60, he tweaks scripts, whips actors into shape, directs, and acts; he plays himself on HBO's Entourage, training the main character to be "Aquaman."
Not only does he appear as a general in The Great Raid, starring Benjamin Bratt and based on the World War II mission to save 500 American POW s from a Japanese camp in the Philippines, but he taught the cast how to fight, too.
USNEWS: I've heard horror stories about your boot camps for actors.
DALE DYE: My theory is that you have to immerse these guys in what a soldier goes through. [For the Raid cast], we took two weeks, and they were handed over to me. There were no cellphones or agents. They ate what I fed them. They lived in holes in the ground. This great raid is something we still study in the military, so the actors can't be piddling around with their weapons. Anything they do on camera would be correct.
USNEWS: What does this training do to them?
DALE DYE: None of these gents have had any military service, so the whole experience of living wild and being on edge, that's foreign to those guys. After a few days of doing that, they get it. Actors believe the sun rises and sets on their butts. That's the antithesis of what a soldier feels.
USNEWS: What did restaging the raid mean to you?
DALE DYE: I love creating a real thing because you have a sense of mission. You don't want to Hollywood it too bad. We told the actors, 'Look, you are portraying real individuals. When your actor weenie wants to come in, don't let it. This is real, and that's dramatic enough.'
USNEWS: What movies got war wrong?
DALE DYE: I didn't like Pearl Harbor and Windtalkers. You can't use those events as a canvas and paint in Hollywood crapola. When you're just being hokey, people can tell. Americans are savvy. When they see a military film, they know what the deal is. They've seen Fallujah live on CNN.
Indeed, Pearl Harbor was a hideous disaster, and Windtalkers was pretty awful.
What I loved were his stunning turns of phrase, like, "You can't use those events as a canvas and paint in Hollywood crapola."
Thanks for your insights! Dale Dye sounds like a straight shooter and a very incisive strategist.
I liked Platoon for its realism. I have not seen We Were Soldiers, because it might be upsetting. I knew Jack Goeghegan and his wife, who are depicted in the movie, when he was a 21-year-old cadet at Pennsylvania Military College. It was tragic to lose such a patriot and Christian only two years later in Viet Nam.
He plays himself in Aquaman?
They call him "Dale" in that episode, but Dale isn't a SEAL, as is the character on the show?
Dale Dye dittoes.
I listen to him from time to time on KFI-640 AM on Sunday afternoons. He's on right before Drudge. My first time seeing him was in the "Under Siege" movies, and also in "Rules of Engagement".
He does "Conquerors" on the History Channel right?
I checked the HBO Entourage for more info on Dale, but they do not list him or his (minor) character. I sent them the URL for the USNews article and hope they will give him some publicity.
Same deal there -- Dye plays a minor character, and the HBO site lists a complaint by a viewer that they are not featuring Dye on the site. Fans, FReep HBO if you want more Dale Dye!!
Same deal there -- Dye plays a minor character, and the HBO site lists a complaint by a viewer that they are not featuring Dye on the site. Fans, FReep HBO if you want more Dale Dye!!
Sorry for the double post.
Sorry, Little Bill, I don't understand your meaning...can you clarify it for me?
Agree -- I saw it many years ago and my main impression was the depiction of how the tension and fear build up -- especially in the scenes where they were trying to make sure the rubbled building was clear of enemies. It made me really admire the men who were on the front lines. (I was behind the scenes, stateside, during the '60-'70 era.)
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