I don’t trust the media. I mean, tonight, my YouTube was all about how bad Cuba is and I kind of distrust it now.

Anyways, this is Kill Castro or Cuba Crossing, a 1980 movie in which Hud (Robert Vaughn) holds a grudge since the Bay of Pigs and wants to kill Castro. Using bar owner, boat captain Tony (Stuart Whitman), and funded by Mr. Bell (Raymond St. Jacques) and Rossellini (Michael V. Gazzo), this isn’t going to end well, because the money men just want to move drugs.

This is the kind of movie that has Robert Vaughn on a beach shouting, “Damn you, Kennedy!”  It’s also the kind of release that has many alternate titles, such as The Mercenaries, Key West Crossing, and Sweet Dirty Tony.

A drag queen sings “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Sybil Danning shows up, as does Woody Strode and Albert Salmi, man-eating turtles, a homoerotic wrestling match (spoiler: all wrestling is homoerotic), a shark attack, a fake Marilyn Monroe singing “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” iguanas getting involved in a bar fight and, well, it’s way more boring than this paragraph would lead you to think. Oh yeah — Caren Kaye, who was the mom on the sitcom It’s Your Move and was the attractive mom in My Tutor, she’s in this. She seduces Stuart Whitman. Yes, it’s a man’s world.

IMDB BS ALERT: “Captain Tony’s Saloon is a real bar in Key West, FL, and was owned by the real Captain Tony, who was also mayor of Key West for a time. He appears in the film as a watcher on horseback in one of the scenes when “Tony” visits the Cuban coast.” Actually, it’s real and here’s the website.

Director Chuck Workman used to edit all the Oscar montages. How did he make such a messy movie? The script, maybe? It was written by Robin Swicord, who get this, went on to write the 1994 Little Women, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Practical Magic and Memoirs of a Geisha. That’s right — she wrote all of your wife’s favorite films. Producer and co-writer Peter Barton went on to Reading Rainbow and man, I’m out of facts.

Thanks to Through the Shattered Lens, I can share the long — and hilarious — opening titles with you:

“From 1961, the year of the Bay of Pigs to today, the Government of the United States has been embroiled in a series of events which have continually led our nation to crisis after crisis and to the brink of war.

ASSIGNMENT — KILL CASTRO, a true story is one of the most confusing and frustrating historical events that might have led to a world power showdown.  It happened yesterday!  It happened today!  It can happen again!

Names of persons and places have been changed to protect the individuals who were called upon to aid their country and in doing so placed their lives in jeopardy.

“I WILL GIVE ALL FOR THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY … RIGHT OR WRONG! — G.W. Bell, Chief of Caribbean Operations, Central Intelligence Agency”

This motion picture is dedicated to all people who desire to live in a free democratic society.”

You can watch this on YouTube.