The Red Beret [Paratrooper] ** (1953, Alan Ladd, Leo Genn, Susan Stephen) – Classic Movie Review 6987

Just when Alan Ladd hit his career heights with Shane, along came director Terence Young’s mediocre 1953 British-made angst-filled wartime action drama to pull him down again.

Ladd plays an American soldier who causes his buddy’s death by making him bail out before his plane crashes. So he masquerades as a Canadian in 1940 to volunteer for the British Army’s paratroop school. He hopes that joining the British paratroopers will help him to find himself again and redeem himself.

Stiff playing matches the direction in this adequate but none too riveting yarn, written by Richard Maibaum and Frank Nugent. It is co-produced by disaster movie king Irving Allen and Bond movie man Albert R Broccoli.

Also in the cast are Susan Stephen, Leo Genn, Harry Andrews, Donald Houston, Anthony Bushell, Patric Doonan, Stanley Baker, Lana Morris, Tim Turner, Michael Kelly, Victor Maddern, Harry Locke, Michael Balfour and Walter Gotell.

It was very popular and successful, though less so in America. Costing $700,000, it grossed $1,750,000 in the US, for a cumulative worldwide gross of $8 million.

It is the first of Ladd’s trilogy with Warwick Films in the UK, followed by Hell Below Zero and The Black Knight.

The Red Beret (also known as Paratrooper in the US) is directed by Terence Young, runs 88 minutes, is made by Warwick Film Productions, is released by Columbia Pictures Corporation, is written by Richard Maibaum and Frank Nugent, is shot in Technicolor by John Wilcox, is produced by Irving Allen and Albert R Broccoli, and is scored by John Addison.

It was filed at Shepperton Studios, London; Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd, Wales, for the African scenes; and RAF Abingdon Parachute School, Oxfordshire, England.

The producers of the film gratefully acknowledged the advice, assistance and facilities provided by The Air Ministry and The War Office but, above all, their thanks went to those men who wear the Red Beret, The Officers and Men of the Airborne Forces.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6987

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