Beach Red *** (1967, Cornel Wilde, Rip Torn, Burr DeBenning) – Classic Movie Review 10,167

Producer-director Cornel Wilde’s 1967 war movie Beach Red stars Cornel Wilde as Captain MacDonald, the film’s narrator, and Rip Torn as the none too well named Sergeant Honeywell (‘That’s what we’re here for. To kill. The rest is all crap!’).

In the story based on Peter Bowman’s 1945 novel Sunday Red Beach (described as a 61-page prose poem), war is tough for the Americans in the South Pacific when a group of marines tries to capture a Japanese-seized island.

There are too many caricatures and clichés in the screenplay by Clint Johnston, Don Peters [Donald A Peters] and Cornel Wilde [Jefferson Pascal], but Wilde does a surprisingly convincing job as both actor and director, not to mention as co-writer, producer and narrator. It is a tour-de-force, and commands respect. But, wait, there’s more. The title song, sung by Jean Wallace, is written by Cornel Wilde (as Elbey Vid).

Wilde plays a tough but fair captain worrying about his wife Julie (played by Wilde’s real-life spouse Jean Wallace) and Rip Torn is fun as the obligatory nasty sergeant.

Also in the cast are Burr DeBenning, Jaime Sanchez, Patrick Wolfe, Linda Albertano, Jan Garrison, Michael Parsons, Norman Pale, Dale Ishimoto, Genki Koyama, Gene Blakely, Norman Pak, Dewey Stringer, Fred Galang, Hiroshi Kiyama, and Michio Hazama.

The World War Two Triple Feature Attack! (1956), Beach Red (1967) and Attack on the Iron Coast (1967) was released in August 2014.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,167

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com