go and tell the spartan be shoot on a budget of barely $ 1mm just outside of la . $ 250k have to be lent to director ted post by burt lancaster to get the film complete after the producer seem to have have trouble accounting for it . then just after the ny film critic give the film their covet award for the year and it distributer go bankrupt and kill the tiny promotion budget and and the film be pull . nonetheless gtts be a masterpiece . burt lancaster play a highly decorate major who will never be promote for reason that will only make sense to the perfumed prince of the pentagon and hillary clinton . it be 1962 and with less than 1500 u maag advisor in vietnam and lancaster be bury in a dead end assignment deep in country that be suppose to be alow intensity combat zone and after be order to send a green lt and some mercs and ruffpuffs and a burntout nco on a senseless mission to a desert former french army camp at muc wa and lancaster find his team have create a major concentration of vc and he go to have to go in and bring them out . a gritty wendell mayes script and fine acting by a largely unknown cast and tight direction and set lancaster superb work in an ironic context well suit to a time in which america still believe it vietnam military presence be make the world safe for democracy . some of the same feeling of republic undervalue classic little bighorn .