Thanks for the memories!

Absolutely Fantastic

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

THE RED BERET 1953This 1953 Technicolor war film about British paratroopers was produced by Warwick Films and released through Columbia Pictures. The film stars Alan Ladd, Leo Genn, Donald Houston, Harry Andrews, Susan Stephen and Anton Diffring.The film starts in 1940 at a training base in the UK. The lead, Alan Ladd, is an American who had joined up in Canada to get into the war. The recruits are all going through some rigorous training designed to weed out the less qualified.Ladd, has a run in with one of the instructors, Stanley Baker, and shows the man up. This draws the attention of the senior officer in charge, Leo Genn. He marks Ladd as a possible officer type.Ladd soon strikes up a friendship with one of the female parachute packers, Susan Stephen. Ladd, is the loner type and the two have sort of a love hate relationship. The instructor Ladd had a run with, Stanley Baker, is killed in a training accident. This seems to have a change on Ladd.The men who survive the training are chomping at the bit for a spot of real action. The Regiment is soon assigned to be part of a raid on occupied France. They are to drop on a German radar station and steal secret components from the radar equipment.The raid comes off, but not without a hitch or two. Several of the paratroopers are killed and others are captured. The men head to the sea for rescue by the Royal Navy. The pick-up is a close run thing with the Germans in hot pursuit.It is now November 1942 and the Regiment has a new mission. The Allies have just landed in North Africa and are now in the rear of the Rommel's Africa Korps. The Regiment is to be dropped in front of the advancing Allies. The Paras are to destroy an important airbase before the German can use it.The drop happens but there is a slight problem. The German types have already occupied the base. A first rate donnybrook is needed to chase the German crowd off. Explosives are now laid and the base is put out of commission for when the German's take the base back. The surviving paratroopers now take off on foot towards the advancing Allied forces.Needless to say the German are not amused with the idea, and set off after the Paras. They corner the Brits on a minefield and it looks like the end of the Regiment. The Paras are taking more than a few losses when Ladd comes up with a plan. He uses a captured German panzerschreck (bazooka) to blow a path through the minefield. Ladd's action and the timely arrival of the Allied forces save the paras from being wiped out.An interesting film that plays out better than one is expecting. The film is based on a non-fiction book of the same title. It was the first of three films Ladd would make for producers, Irving Allen and Albert R Broccoli's company. The other two were THE BLACK KNIGHT and HELL BELOW ZERO. Broccoli would become famous as the producer of the James Bond films.The direction was by another Bond regular, Terence Young. Young would be the helmsman on three of the first four Bond films. Another Bond type, screenwriter, Richard Maibaum adapts from the H.S.G. Sanders book. Maibaum wrote the screenplays for 13 of the Bond films.The film was a massive money maker bringing in 7 million over production costs. (Ladd cleaned up as he had a deal for 10 percent of the profits over 2 million dollars) The film was released the same year as Ladd's masterful turn in the western, SHANE.

What happened to Sullivan or Sousa,not hard enough for the paras perhaps. "The Red Beret" tries but fails to evoke that somewhat blinkered sense of pride that causes members of the Parachute Regiment to refer to all other branches of the British Army as "Crap - Hats". We see the training that disposes of the one actor who might have enlivened the picture - the great Mr S.Baker -very early on just after what might have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship with Pte Mckendrick(Mr A.Ladd) forged in the heat of an unarmed combat session where Mr Baker (in RAF uniform and presumably a "Crap - Hat" himself) is given a lesson in bitch - slapping by Mr Ladd who clearly is not the raw untrained rookie he appears to be. Mr Baker's parachute fails to open,although when Ladd walks up to his body on the ground it looks as if he had merely tripped off the kerb. Mr Leo Genn as the C.O. looks somewhat bemused throughout as though wondering how Mr Ladd managed to get top billing whilst sleeping through his performance.And well he might. "The Red Beret" gives Mr H.Andrews an early chance to hone his senior NCO schtick,although he doesn't quite convince in the accent department it does allow him to speak his deathbed paean to the bagpipes with some authority,bettered only by Sir A.Guinness a few years later in "Tunes of Glory". As for Mr Ladd himself,well,he was about to make the wonderful "Shane" so perhaps we can forgive him for not even attempting to do the Canadian accent and looking as though he was on Quaaludes for breakfast. The love "interest" - if that's not too strong a word - is Miss S.Stephen.How she was chosen over the excellent Miss L.Morris(looking suitably peeved at this omission) is between her agent and the casting director. Her love scene is notable only for the amazing support given throughout by her brassiere in an uncanny echo of Miss J.Russell in "The Outlaw" The back - projection is lamentable,the battle scenes barely competent but the sight of Mr L Genn pulling the pin out of a hand grenade with his teeth is worth the price of admission alone.

Don't know why this movie appeals to me this much except for the excellent Leo Genn who makes any movie better. It is one of those that I can watch over and over. I think it is that there are so many great British character actors and Allan Ladd isn't bad but his usual self. The story line is simple but then I was a small child at the beginning of the war and all the movies were very simplistic. I think that is what I enjoy. Not a lot of side drama, just a straight forward telling of men at war in the old idealized style. The editing is a bit choppy in places and the old blue screen is obvious in odd places but "Sorry for the man who hears the pipes and was na born in Scotland."

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.