History Film / RedZoneCuba

* LoveableRogue: Griffin ''might'' have been intended to be this. ''Might.''

''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 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.

* 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. While the broken cigarette makes at least some kind of sense (Griffith is a heavy smoker throughout the film), the penny does not play any role whatsoever.

* 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.

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Griffin and company get involved in The UsefulNotes/BayOfPigsInvasion.
* 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.]]
** Considering the worst antics the three vagrant criminals get into, a somewhat DarkerAndEdgier version of a HappyEnding would be more accurate.

* {{Bookends}}: ''Red Zone Cuba'' begins and ends with the phrase "ran all the way to hell."

* TheCastShowOff: Carradine again. His voice may be crusty, but the man can carry a tune.

* LadyOfWar: The Cuban guard that Tom Servo identified as Patty Hearst and [[Series/TheDickVanDykeShow "Laura Petrie]]: Revolutionary".

%% * TheMusical: [[http://web.archive.org/web/20030402184739/http://www11.brinkster.com/kundo3/rzc/main.html Oh, yes.]]
* MeaningfulName: Baily ''Chast''ain (read: chaste) is the character in the film, who suffers the most from the communists (they part him from his mine in Arizona) and he shows the most of a capitalist attitude.

* ThemeParkVersion: The way this movie presents the US Army.

[[quoteright:306:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Red_Zone_Cuba_video_2212.jpg]]

''Red Zone Cuba'' (1966), also known as ''Night Train to Mundo Fine'', is a movie about... well, it's hard to say really. It follows Griffin, an escaped convict and outlaw played by none other than Creator/ColemanFrancis (who also wrote, produced and directed the film) and his two associates as they try to scrabble out a marginal existence as migrant workers in the American South (OK, it's obviously the trashlands around Lancaster in the days before meth labs). They learn that the army is planning to invade UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} (good job on the whole "secret" thing, huh?!) and decide to sign up--so they can desert with the signing bonus. (Unfortunately for them, the Army doesn't pay cash up front.)

After less than 24 hours in boot camp and a laughable desertion attempt, the Army "strike force" (which consists of five guys, and gets {{Handwave}}d by being a preliminary raiding force or something) "shoves off"[[note]]"''[[NoYou You]]'' shove off!"[[/note]] to Cuba (well, UsefulNotes/NewMexico [[CaliforniaDoubling posing as Cuba]]) to [[HistoricalInJoke pave the way for the main Bay of Pigs invasion]], only to be foiled by UsefulNotes/FidelCastro (or, rather, a look-very-vaguely-alike with a badly-fitting false beard), who captures our daring trio and takes them to a POW camp. While in prison, Griffin learns that one of their fellow soldiers--on the verge of death--owns a valuable uranium/diamond/tungsten mine in UsefulNotes/{{Arizona}}, and the three decide to break out and take control of the mine themselves.

Once back in the US however, the trio are distracted by a restaurant and decide to vent their frustrations by murdering the owner and raping his blind daughter, hopping on a freight train (driven by none other than Creator/JohnCarradine) and stealing each other's keepsakes for petty cash. When they finally get to the mine, the soldier's widow happily offers to split the deeds to the mine with them, and, out of gratitude, Griffin shoots her. The police, finally noticing the 250-pound bald guy murdering his way across the country, close in. Coleman Francis is shot, and his partners surrender. One of the policemen loads the widow's body into the back of his truck and returns her to her home where, by a twist of fate, her soldier husband has just inexplicably arrived home completely well. But his wife is NotQuiteDead, and they share a reunion as the film thankfully shudders to a stop.

For the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' version, please go to the [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E19RedZoneCuba episode recap page]].

* VillainProtagonist: Griffin himself. The entire point of the movie is just watching him commit crime after crime, all while insisting he's totally going to go legit.

** Even though it's deliberate misspelling, director Francis even manages to screw up the joke by allowing the viewer less than two seconds to read the sign.

* TheSociopath: Griffin. It was probably unintended -- but if it ''was'' intended, then he's one of the most disturbingly realistic portrayals of a sociopath ever put to film.

* RedScare: Like ''Film/TheBeastOfYuccaFlats'', this movie takes it's 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 BananaRepublic. The focus of the story is on Griffin's unscrupulous acts, though.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Obviously Cherokee Jack isn't supposed to be an actual Cherokee, but there's still no explanation as to why an airplane pilot in the Arizona desert has a Brooklyn accent.
* OffscreenTeleportation: Chastain. Last we saw him he was locked up in a Cuban P.O.W. camp waiting to be executed by firing squad, then he shows up again in the United States, alive and well, at the end of the movie.

* InformedAbility: It's hard to believe Griffin could be a magnate of ''anything'', much less "The Cotton King of the South".

** Griffin mashes a fellow enlistee's face on his knee, but thanks to the angle and the blocking, it looks like he's 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.

* FatBastard: Griffin. As the various entries on this page show, he's not exactly a nice man, and he's grossly overweight.

* 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's listed as a "guest star."

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Griffin and company get involved in The Bay of Pigs invasion.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Apparently the entire process of enlisting, completing training, and being deployed on a top secret mission only takes 24 hours. Moreover, the US Army is willing to enlist hobos, some of whom have criminal records.

* 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 way that suggests a huge significance. While the broken cigarette makes at least some kind of sense (Griffith is a heavy smoker throughout the film), the penny does not play any role whatsoever.

* AntiHero: Supposedly Griffin (maybe), though any audience sympathy has evaporated by the time he's raping the restaurant owner's blind daughter.

''Red Zone Cuba'', also known as ''Night Train to Mundo Fine'', is a movie about... well, it's hard to say really. It follows Griffin, an escaped convict and outlaw played by none other than Creator/ColemanFrancis (who also wrote, produced and directed the film) and his two associates as they try to scrabble out a marginal existence as migrant workers in the American South (OK, it's obviously the trashlands around Lancaster in the days before meth labs). They learn that the army is planning to invade UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} (good job on the whole "secret" thing, huh?!) and decide to sign up--so they can desert with the signing bonus. (Unfortunately for them, the Army doesn't pay cash up front.)

* TheHeroDies: Well, it depends on your definition of [[DesignatedHero "hero"]]

* RedScare: Like ''Film/TheBeastOfYuccaFlats'', this movie takes it's 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 BananaRepublic. The focus of the story is on Griffins unscrupulous acts, though.

* FailedASpotCheck: One of the prisoners keeps a huge painting (a woman and a child, presumably a religious image) under his blanket in the Cuban POW camp. How the Cuban guards missed this stretches belief a lot.

* SociopathicHero: Griffin. It was probably unintended -- but if it ''was'' intended, then he's one of the most disturbingly realistic portrayals of a sociopath ever put to film.

* UnscrupulousHero: Griffin. The entire point of the movie is just watching him commit crime after crime, all while insisting he's totally going to go legit.

* 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!

* CaliforniaDoubling: Once again various bleak wastelands in Kern, Ventura, and north L.A. Counties portray everything from the Arizona to Cuba. Works reasonably well for the former, not nearly so well for the latter.

* BittersweetEnding: Arguably a Happy Ending, depending on your opinion of Griffin. 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.

* TheCameo: Creator/JohnCarradine, who only appears in one scene at the very beginning of the movie, and also he sings the theme song. Despite this he's listed as a "guest star."

* GainaxEnding: "Griffin, he ran all the way to hell... with a penny and a broken cigarette."

** The dog, on itself, on the barb wire fance.

* HollywoodDarkness: Several "night" scenes are clearly shot in the daylight.

* VillainProtagonist: Griffin. The entire point of the movie is just watching him commit crime after crime, all while insisting he's totally going to go legit.

After less than 24 hours in boot camp and a laughable desertion attempt, the Army "strike force" (which consists of five guys, and gets {{Handwave}}d by being a preliminary raiding force or something) "shoves off"[[note]]"''[[NoYou You]]'' shove off!"[[/note]] to Cuba (well, UsefulNotes/NewMexico posing as Cuba) to [[HistoricalInJoke pave the way for the main Bay of Pigs invasion]], only to be foiled by UsefulNotes/FidelCastro (or, rather, a look-very-vaguely-alike with a badly-fitting false beard), who captures our daring trio and takes them to a POW camp. While in prison, Griffin learns that one of their fellow soldiers--on the verge of death--owns a valuable uranium/diamond/tungsten mine in Arizona, and the three decide to break out and take control of the mine themselves.

!! This film contains examples of:

After less than 24 hours in boot camp and a laughable desertion attempt, the Army "strike force" (which consists of five guys, and gets {{Handwave}}d by being a preliminary raiding force or something) "shoves off"[[note]]You shove off![[/note]] to Cuba (well, New Mexico posing as Cuba) to [[HistoricalInJoke pave the way for the main Bay of Pigs invasion]], only to be foiled by UsefulNotes/FidelCastro (or, rather, a look-very-vaguely-alike with a badly-fitting false beard), who captures our daring trio and takes them to a POW camp. While in prison, Griffin learns that one of their fellow soldiers--on the verge of death--owns a valuable uranium/diamond/tungsten mine in Arizona, and the three decide to break out and take control of the mine themselves.