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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Like THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED, THE RED BERET is a 1950s war effort made by the team (Albert Broccoli, Terence Young, etc.) who would later go on to make the early James Bond films and thus kick-start a whole genre of cinema. This film stars Alan Ladd as an Canadian soldier who joins forces with a squad of British paratroopers to go on missions behind enemy lines in both France and North Africa.It's a fairly typical war movie from the era, a little stodgy in places and ridiculous in others. The silly bar-room brawl is straight out of a western and seems to come from nowhere, it's so sudden. Ladd plays a perpetually grumpy fellow but Susan Stephen doesn't have any trouble falling for his less-than-ideal charms. The supporting cast of British talent is better: in his first film role, Harry Andrews is a scene-stealer as the RSM, and there are parts for Stanley Baker, Donald Houston, Anton Diffring, and Leo Genn.THE RED BERET seems to be suffering from a low budget, because the action sequences aren't quite up to scratch and never convince too much, although there's a novel use for a bazooka which is worth something. The skydiving stuff is better and more thrilling, and Ladd's back story, when it eventually comes to light, is an acceptable one.

Allan Ladd is an ex American bomber pilot. Having seen his friend die during a pre-war accident, Ladd resigns, poses as a Canadian, and enlists as a private in the British paratroopers. They're the ones who wear a red beret. Kids, in World War II you didn't see berets all over the place as you do now. They were distinctive and the mark of membership in an elite unit.There were no berets anywhere in the American armed forces, boys and girls. As far as Americans were concerned, berets were only worn by effete Paris Bohemian artists who used cigarette holders, drank espresso at sidewalk cafés, and talked snooty talk about Schopenhauer and Diderot and other high-falutin' Greeks. After America enters the war some GI's show up in England and ridicule Ladd and his funny hat. He decks the big guy.Anyway, Ladd does okay in jump school, except that he snarls a lot, what with his previous tragic military experience. He knows a lot about how things work but he absolutely rejects any promotion, especially to officer rank, because it involves making decisions about life and death, and he's had enough of that.He keeps his past a secret from everyone except an attractive young woman he meets and spends the night with. Ladd blames her when his superiors find out about it and conflict ensues.It's all cleared up after a drop in North Africa. The regiment gets the job done but the leader is wounded. The men find themselves stuck in a mine field, sitting ducks for the Germans, until Ladd figures out a way to explode some of the mines and create a path to safety.How he manages this is a real jaw dropper. He takes an anti-tank rocket and shoots it into -- or barely above -- the ground leading to safety. A half dozen mines explode each time he fires the weapon, and he fires it three times. The physics elude me. Either the rocket is fired INTO the ground where, if its lucky, it will find one mine to explode. Or the rocket skims the earth and explodes the several mines it's passing over -- somehow. There is of course a third possibility, and the film implies it. The rocket is fired INTO the ground but then continues on its path, burrowing through the earth, a foot or so beneath the surface, for about twenty yards. In that case, in addition to bringing back German radar equipment, the regiment should have brought back the specifications for the anti-tank rocket.There are some genuinely tense scenes. On their first flight, their jump leader tells the frightened men that it's as easy as falling off a log. He jumps and goes all the way in. Everyone gulps and shudders until Ladd gets them cracking again. The African scenes are obviously shot somewhere in Britain. That bunch grass and black peat are unmistakable. And it's interesting to see Anton Differing fighting on OUR side for once, as a Polish volunteer. But, excuse me, was Stanley Baker's rich Welsh voice dubbed over by somebody else???It's undemanding, inexpensive, and full of clichés. I kind of enjoyed it.

Paratrooper which played under the title of The Red Beret originally across the pond was one of three films that Alan Ladd did for Warwick Pictures in the United Kingdom to be released by Columbia in the USA. The old standby gambit of having an American film star playing in a British location be a Canadian was once again used. Only this time it was an integral part of the plot.Ladd in fact is an American who left the American army when in training he gave an order that cost a friend his life. He's decided he does not want to have responsibility and enlists in the Canadian army when war breaks out. Time and circumstance have put him in Paratrooper school where a unit is being trained under Major Leo Genn. There's also a little time for romance with perky Susan Stephens who looks like an early version of Hayley Mills.The Red Beret is what is given the British Paratroopers as well as wings upon completion of their training. It's a point of pride with them just as the Green Beret is with the US Army Special Forces. But back in the day it was felt US audiences would not know exactly what the significance was. The British audiences did when Alan Ladd got into a brawl with some visiting Americans when they insulted the Red Beret.A commando style raid to get some radar equipment and the beginning of the western North African campaign provide all the well executed combat sequences that director Terrence Young provided us. Harry Andrews, Donald Houston, and a favorite British player of mine, Stanley Baker are among some of the other Paratroopers Ladd is in training and combat with.Of Ladd's British films Paratrooper and Hell Below Zero are pretty well done. But The Black Knight was a disaster. Of course none of these were as good as Shane.

This is the thinly disguised story of real life hero John Frost. Portrayed in this film by Leo Genn and called Maj. Snow (I said the disguise was thin).Lt Col John Frost led the small group of paratroopers who actually got to the bridge in A Bridge Too Far (1977) (where he was played by Anthony Hopkins). Despite only having a few hundred men instead of the whole brigade that they expected to get there, they still held out for four days against an S.S. Panzer group. John Frost got his knees damaged by a mortar bomb so spent the rest of the war in a P.O.W. camp. In this film Maj. Snow gets wounded in the legs by a grenade but is carried to safety by his men.But Arnhem was just the final move in an amazing wartime career. Frost was one of the earliest volunteers in the newly formed parachute regiment at the start of the war. As a Major, he led the successful raid on the German radar station at Bruneval where radar specialist Sgt Cox (Sgt Box in this film) dismantled the German unit and brought it back to Britain along with some of the operators so that the British could understand the limits of the German radar system. This happened in a very similar way to the raid portrayed in the first part of the film.The next raid Frost led was on an airfield in Tunisia, just like the second raid in the film. In real life, as in the film, the raid on the airfield was a success but they had some problems getting back to their own lines.Frost then led the parachute drop on Sicily and a further raid in Italy before his wartime career finished at Arnhem.This film is quite well made and adapts the story well to fit Alan Ladd in without making it too obvious that he's only there to attract an American audience. The real heroes of this story are John Frost and the men of the Parachute Regiment.