Bill Murray & the Pentagon: The Making of Hit Propaganda
Cheech and Chong join the army! That was the original idea for the film Stripes by director Ivan Reitman, that came to him while getting ready for the premiere of the classic Bill Murray-starrer Meatballs in 1979. The 1960s and ’70s were filled with unrest over civil rights issues, political scandals like Watergate, and the United States heading into the worst recession since WWII. Reitman’s idea was the perfect fish-out-of-water story, combining two forces that were seemingly at odds at the time: the military and the counter-culture. But the film would have larger ramifications than the filmmakers intended.
When making a film about the United States Armed Forces, filmmakers can reach out to the Pentagon and the Department of Defense in order to negotiate the use of real military resources. The Pentagon’s film office is incredibly mindful of its perception, so working with them on a film is no simple task as author David L. Robb learned while researching his book Operation Hollywood. The book covers dozens of films that worked with the military (some successfully, others fall apart), including Stripes.
Robb’s book unveils several conversations between Don Baruch, the head of the Pentagon’s film office, and Dan Goldberg, Stripes’ producer and co-writer.
