by Dan Robinson
We have seen so many great receivers and other equipment appear in movies, it’s surprising that this one may have slipped by our Radios in Movies radar.
In Apocalypse Now, the classic 1979 epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is briefed in a hotel room in Saigon about Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando), the renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The scene includes Harrison Ford (by the time the movie came he had become a big star with Star Wars) who tells Sheen that Kurtz is to be “terminated”.
But as we’re reminded in a post on the Collins Collectors Facebook page, a famous radio is sitting on a file cabinet in this scene — identified in the collector group as a KWM-2A.
It’s another reminder of how many great examples of amateur radio and other equipment have played roles in great movies!
Nobody mentioning the PRC-25 or PRC-77 next to the Collins. Maybe that one is more for the 6m QRPer crowd!
Praise The Doors!
There’s something about that movie that really gets to me. I watched it for the first time with my wife/then girlfriend in a small local theater in Prince Rupert, BC (on the mainland opposite to Haida Gwaii). I was so immersed into the film, that I was sure that the special effects included a very strong smell of marijuana! (from a few rows away lol). I regularly watch the movie every few years, and see something different with each showing. I’m glad I purchased the DVD set a few years ago, and now I’ll look for the Collins next time I watch it!
That pic does not look like Martin Sheen…..
I didn’t say it was Martin Sheen — he’s in the scene though
“I love the smell of NAPALM in the morning. It smells like (pause) victory.”
That is in a mobile home/trailer. He is being briefed by Harrison Ford.
Perhaps — I can change the description if confirmed
Collins gear was uses extensively in Vietnam, namely the KWM-2 transceiver as well as the separate receiver and transmitter, 75S-3 and the 32S-3. I made it a point to acquire an ‘S’ Line, and it’s still working. Very rugged and attractive gear.
Now I have to rent the movie!
It’s been years since I’ve watched it!
Great find there!