Red Ball Express *** (1952, Jeff Chandler, Alex Nicol, Sidney Poitier, Charles Drake, Judith Braun, Hugh O’Brian, Jacqueline Duval, Jack Kelly) – Classic Movie Review 7675

Director Budd Boetticher’s 1952 World War Two-set wartime adventure Red Ball Express follows the route of the truck division of the title in their desperate journey through enemy-occupied French territory delivering supplies to General Patton’s army.

Written by John Michael Hayes, this is a frisky but predictable yarn, boosted with superior acting in stereotype roles from Jeff Chandler as Lieutenant Chick Campbell, the officer in control, Sidney Poitier as Robertson, an African American GI subjected to race prejudice, and Alex Nicol as the familiar sadistic sergeant, Red Kallek.

Scriptwriter Hayes does not quite deliver the goods in the same way he did in Alfred Hitchcock’s gems Rear Window and The Trouble with Harry, but Westerns expert Boetticher keeps Red Ball Express robust, taut and manly.

Also in the cast are Charles Drake, Judith Braun, Hugh O’Brian, Jack Kelly, Jacqueline Duval, Cindy Garner, Howard Petrie, Robert Davis [Davis Roberts], Frank Chase, Jack Warden and Richard Garland.

Red Ball Express is directed by Budd Boetticher, runs 83 minutes, is made and released by Universal International Pictures, is written by John Michael Hayes, from a story by Marcel [Marcy] Klauber and Billy [William] Grady Jr, is shot in black and white by Maury Gertsman, and is produced by Aaron Rosenberg, with Art Direction by Bernard Herzbrun and Richard H Riedel.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7675

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