The Red Beret (1953)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply A Masterpiece

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Future James Bond director Terence Young, who later helmed "Dr. No," "From Russia, with Love," and "Thunderball," doesn't muck about in "The Red Beret," a low-budget but entertaining World War II thriller about British paratroopers. Clocking in at 88 nimble minutes, this Columbia Pictures release is a fast-moving epic with a first-rate supporting cast. Masquerading as a Canadian, Alan Ladd of "Shane" fame joins His Majesty's Army and trains as a paratrooper. He hides a flaw in his character. It seems that Private Steve 'Canada' McKendrick (Ladd)was an officer in the Army Air Corp who had problems and no longer relishes the idea of being an officer. The sparks fly between former pilot turned English and pretty Penny Gardner (Susan Stephen of "Three Spare Wives") who packs his parachute and sticks a handkerchief in it. This turns out to be a quaint old custom that Penny defends. Naturally, any wartime thriller about paratroopers features scenes where chutes don't open, soldiers collide in the air, or they injure themselves when they land. Leo Glenn is well cast as real life Major Snow who saw action against the Germans. Interestingly enough, Anton Diffring plays a Polish paratrooper; later, Diffring would specialize in roles as a German officer. The initial training jump from a balloon goes awry when their sergeant drops out of the balloon but his chute fails to open. Stanley Baker plays that unlucky sergeant. The first mission takes them into Occupied France where our heroes launch an assault on a German radar installation at Bruneval. Young and "Hell Below Zero" lenser John Wilcox stage some exciting combat scenes, especially in the castle setting during the radar raid. Later, the British start jumping from America aircraft, unlike British planes where they jump through a hole in the bottom of the fuselage. Producer Albert R. Broccoli would team up with Young in later Ladd vehicles and eventually they would make the Bonds. Scenarists Richard Maibaum, who penned several 007 epics, and veteran American scribe Frank Nugent of "Fort Apache" insert scenes of battlefield gruesomeness. Not only does one soldier jump to his death, but also another loses his legs during a mission. After the raid on the radar station, the British are flown into North Africa where they are ordered to destroy an airfield held by the Germans. During the battle, Ladd and company stumble onto a deadly minefield and the Germans arrive and set up mortars and machine guns to wipe them out if they refuse to surrender. Something similar to this happened later in the Clint Eastwood war movie "Kelly's Heroes." Anyway, Ladd rounds up a rocket launcher that they use it to clear a path and escape. I don't know why they did resort to their own firearms and blast their way through the minefield the same way that Rock Hudson would do in "Tobruk." Altogether, "The Red Beret" chutes the works with an atmopheric orchestral score from John Addison.

From the onset, this movie starts with a serious deficit. Like too many Alan Ladd movies, it inexplicably has Ladd playing an angry man--too angry. He sulks and barks incessantly--like he's suffering from a bad case of PMS. While this sometimes works, here it just makes no sense. Even when you later learn about the supposed source of his anger, it still makes no sense. Having Ladd play a NON-CRAZY guy would have made this a better and more realistic film.Angry Alan has joined the Canadian Army and has volunteered for paratrooper duty. He's such a good soldier that they want to make him an officer but he refuses each time it is offered. Through the course of his training, he somehow gets a girlfriend--though what she see's in grouchy-boy, I don't know. The audience knows that despite his attitude, somehow Alan will make good by the end of the picture.In some ways this is a very good production and in others it's a disappointment. The paratroop scenes are very good and appear pretty realistic. Genuine American and British planes were used and the fights look nice as do the jumps. However, at other times it comes off poorly--because the little details were wrong. A few examples include post-WWII markings on an airplane (a minor problem but it should have been fixed) and a scene where the sky color changes back and forth in a sloppy manner. So, in a jump early in the film it's dusk and then looks about half an hour earlier and then half an hour later. Again, not a huge problem but seeing the change so quickly was baffling. The final odd thing is a common cliché--but a dumb one. Again and again you see guys pulling the pins from grenades WITH THEIR TEETH! This is a great way to lose teeth--and no one really ever did this--yet you see it in films repeatedly.As a result of some decent action, wooden characters (especially Ladd) and a few flubs, I think this is in the category of 'time-passer' and nothing more. Even if Albert Broccoli, Terrence Young and a lot of other future James Bond film crew worked on this, it's only average at best.

The Red Beret (AKA Paratrooper) is directed by Terence Young and stars Alan Ladd & Leo Genn. It is based on the book of the same name written by Hilary Saint George Saunders. "This story tells of one small part of the war. The story of those men who joined the parachute regiment — Men from many different countries and creeds, who were to find themselves one day in a parachute training establishment. Only in the telling and in the spirit of these men themselves do history and fiction meet — even if we dare not show in this film what some of these men did in fact and in real life achieve. For nobody would ever believe it." Somewhere in England. The year 1940 after Dunkirk.A rather popular film at the Worldwide box office on release, this in spite of some British complaints about American actor Ladd playing the lead in a British war story, The Red Beret is serviceable as an action character piece. The story is in effect a play on real war hero John Frost, who is here played by Genn as Major Snow (Frost was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in A Bridge Too Far). With this in mind it's obvious that Ladd, who does OK in his role of the reluctant leader, is purely there for American audience enticement. However, the makers do a good enough job of not letting Ladd's part in the film be the sole point of reference and detract from the real heroes from which the core of the film is based. There's some poor technical aspects to put up with, such as major superimposed sequences that stick out like a sore thumb, but these are off set a touch by the well constructed battle scenes. If in an undemanding war film mood this just about leaves a favourable impression. 6/10

Somehow 'The Red Beret,' by no measure a fine film, remains one of my sentimental favorites, perhaps because in my teens it aired often on late night TV, under its U.S. title 'Paratrooper.' Alan Ladd, even when he wasn't acting, appeared as the sexy strong stoical silent type, and here he again fills that bill. I also love this film because it's one of the many that carved out for Harry Andrews his reputation for playing tough-tender sergeants and sergeant majors; in 'The Red Beret' his last-words line, "Pity the man who hears the pipes and was na born in Scotland," has stuck pleasantly with me into my sixth decade; he also gives a lovely little take when the red berets are issued to him and his men and his character must part with his beloved regimental headgear. Also very sexy here, in his own astute, urbane way - quite different from Ladd's, is Leo Genn (who, in my experience, never gave a poor screen performance, and who was very good as the psychiatrist in 'The Snake Pit' and as Mr. Starbuck in John Huston's adaptation of 'Moby Dick'). Pert, pretty Susan Stephen - in a curls-and-frizz hairdo that was fifteen years ahead of its time! - doesn't act very well here, but I still find her effort affecting as Ladd's character's love interest.I suppose my affection for 'The Red Beret' is one more proof that "There's no accounting for taste." Which helps to explain, if not to excuse, most of the rubbish studios churn out nowadays for uncritical mass consumption. I wish 'The Red Beret' would release on disc so that once, and many times over, in the wee hours I could snuggle down on the sofa and enjoy it as I did when I was a teenager.