The Red Beret (1953)

The Red Beret: Directed by Terence Young. With Alan Ladd, Leo Genn, Susan Stephen, Harry Andrews. In 1940, an American claiming to be Canadian volunteers for the British Army’s paratroop school.

“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 heu0026#39;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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAngry Alan has joined the Canadian Army and has volunteered for paratrooper duty. Heu0026#39;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 seeu0026#39;s in grouchy-boy, I donu0026#39;t know. The audience knows that despite his attitude, somehow Alan will make good by the end of the picture.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn some ways this is a very good production and in others itu0026#39;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 itu0026#39;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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs a result of some decent action, wooden characters (especially Ladd) and a few flubs, I think this is in the category of u0026#39;time-passeru0026#39; and nothing more. Even if Albert Broccoli, Terrence Young and a lot of other future James Bond film crew worked on this, itu0026#39;s only average at best.”