Main Cast: Cornel Wilde, Rip Torn, Burr de Benning, Patrick Wolfe, Jean Wallace
Release Year: 1967
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
Cornel Wilde produced, directed, and stars in this sincere, hard-edged look at World War II that doesn't flinch from the horrors of battle. The action takes place during a single American campaign to take an island held by the Japanese. Brief flashbacks to civilian life are the only escape from the gritty, dreary setting. The usual cliché characters are replaced by new ones, such as the captain (Wilde) who loves his wife but hates the war, the sergeant (Rip Torn) who gets sadistic pleasure out of battle, the minister's son (Patrick Wolfe) who keeps remembering the girl he left back home, and the Southern illiterate (Burr DeBenning) who finds a place for himself in the Marines. The screenplay (from a 1945 novel by Peter Bowman) avoids stereotypes yet doesn't make any of these men into fleshed-out characters. Still, the acting is solid and Wilde deserves commendation for taking a harsh, unromanticized look at the Big One, over thirty years before Steven Spielberg did it with Saving Private Ryan. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
Review
This often-overlooked war movie remains a powerful experience despite a few flaws. Beach Red is pretty gripping throughout, thanks to its immediacy: director/star Cornel Wilde does an impressive job of making the viewer feeling like they are inside the middle of the battle by capturing the action with an effective mix of handheld camerawork and jittery editing that cuts in flashbacks and flash-forwards to create a disorienting mood. Beach Red is also unique amongst war films of its era for portraying both sides of the conflict as decent human beings and also depicting the violence of the battles in a gruesome, deglamorized style (these elements would make the film an influence on later films like Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line). Unfortunately, Beach Red suffers from some flaws when it steps away from the battlefield: the flashbacks to the American soldiers' home lives are often clumsy and forced and the narration and between-battle scenes between the soldiers have a similarly well-meaning yet often awkward feel. That said, Wilde's technique has an undeniable raw power that keeps the film going past these rough spots, building to an ending that is heart-wrenching in a way that war films rarely are. Wilde also turns in a solid performance as the captain who acts as the moral compass for his platoon and his work is supported by strong character work from Rip Torn as a grizzled, bloodthirsty sergeant and Burr DeBenning as a country-boy soldier who's just trying to make it home alive. All in all, Beach Red overcomes its problems to stake its claim as a groundbreaking entry in the war film genre. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
