Perfect cast and a good story

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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.

At the time this film was made (1953) many of the men who took part in ww2 wearing the RED BERET were still around and expecting to see a movie depicting what they had accomplished, and the opening text pays tribute to them somewhat, the film then goes on to a disappointing plot about an American leading man Alan Ladd,whose sole purpose seems to be to sell the movie in the U.S. The action depicting the raid on the Bruneval radar installation is o.k. but the later action which I think is supposed to be the fight in Tunisia gives a very seedy type of appearance,amateur,and certainly unconvincing acting and generally cheap looking sets, possibly a gravel-pit somewhere,(I guess most of the budget was spent on the leading star's salary) although the training scenes were very accurate. It was shot at R.A.F. Abingdon,near Oxford, the Parachute Training School at that time, the Guardroom at the rear gate can be recognized, where they are issued with their Red Berets.Considering all the hard fighting that this regiment actually did in fact do in so many places this had the potential to be a great movie. What was required was a good plot,a good script and less of a romantic storyline and some tight direction, sadly this did not happen and no serious attempt at a movie was made about the heroic actions of the Airborne Forces until "A Bridge Too Far". Other movies like The Cruel Sea, Twelve O'Clock High, Bridge on the River Kwai, King Rat and Das Boot etc.depict the sacrifices made by these men accurately I think, the men who wore the Red Beret must have left this screening very disappointed,I certainly did. Worth having a copy in your collection as I have, if only to think of what might have been.

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.

In real life, Alan Ladd was scared to death of flying (he preferred trains), but you'd never know it in this exciting action adventure set in early World War II.The old English method of training paratroopers by jumping from balloons is accurately depicted, as is the result of landing with an unopened parachute (the British, like the German airborne, eschewed the use of reserve parachutes).It's actually a pretty standard war movie, though the score is exciting and memorable, and the combat scenes, though dated now, are pretty well done, considering this movie was shot in 1953.Definitely worth watching!