What was the first reference to Vietnam in a mainstream U.S. film or TV show? The earliest I can think of is The Twilight Zone episode In Praise Of Pip (1963).
I’ll have to pull this one out and watch it again. One of the nurses throws a barb at Nancy Kulp about how she’s never had a man.
That would have been my nominee.
I remember that Jack Klugman was the star. When he gets word that his son has been wounded in action in Viet Nam, he says something like, “There isn’t even supposed to be a war there.”
China Gate (1957), written and directed by Sam Fuller, starring Gene Barry and Angie Dickinson. The plot description in the AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures begins,
Followed by The Quiet American, starring Audie Murphy, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, from the novel by Graham Greene. Technically, it’s about the Indochinese War, 1946-1954, which segued into the Vietnam War.