HoaW Movie Review: Beach Red (1967)
As a historian, and more specifically a military historian I have a certain genre of movie that I gravitate towards: you guessed it, war films. This is probably a random start for my first ever History on a Whim Movie Review, but you have to start somewhere! This is the first of many more to come, I am also going to start doing book, and article reviews! Woohoo!
Please excuse my absence in posting over the last few weeks. PhD classes, work, children and trying to keep up with the constant flow of source material and inspiration have me bogged down. So anyways, let’s get to it.
Rated R! Watch out!
Beach Red is a 1967 war film, directed by Cornel Wilde. Wilde’s story came from a novella of the same title by a man named Peter Bowman. Wilde directed, produced and starred in the movie, alongside Rip Torn and Burr DeBenning. I haven’t found a listed budget for the film, but it was distributed by United Artists, and runs about one hour and 45 minutes.
Cornel Wilde was at one point in time a leading man. Born in Hungary in 1912, Wilde along with his family moved to the US following the collapse of the Hapsburgs, at the end of the First World War. In 1945 Wilde received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, when he starred in a movie known as a Song To Remember. In 2021, the name doesn’t really hold much memory for most, but he was a man working in that era at the tail-end of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Beach Red was definitely interesting to say the least. This movie is placed in a time where filmmakers we’re kind of shifting from that old Hollywood vibe of cliche and campiness to an era of realism. This movie falls more on the side of realism, in some parts, in other parts, it is tremendously corny. I will get into the details momentarily.
This 1967 movie is set during the Second World War, somewhere in the Pacific. The guys taking part in the action are Marines. We don’t get any unit numbers, or any idea of where the island they are attacking is, or is supposed to be, so this is supposed to be a generalized experience of the War in the Pacific for the USMC. They filmed the movie in the Philippines so it fits a nice Pacific War vibe, and it is certainly generic in that sense. The movie begins with guys ready to load into landing craft, just hours before they hit the beach. You get some cheesy voice-overs in order to get a feel for the characters. Wilde’s character is a former lawyer, just trying to get the job done and not let anybody down, you know the old war movie cliché. You get a backstory on a few other guys. You have Burr DeBenning’s character a guy named Egan. Egan is a 24 year-old fella from a backcountry town that didn’t have electricity, he was also abandoned by his parents at 4 years old. So he is rough and tumble, and on the other hand you have the idealistic college dropout, a kid studying pre-law, who is deathly afraid of hand-to-hand combat. Rip Torn, for those of you who don’t know who that is think Patches O’Houlihan in Dodgeball (2004). This backstory stuff is pretty corny. Often throughout the movie they will show still shots of family members, like soldiers children, or wives, just standing there frozen in time. When the college dropout kid thinks about being bayoneted you get three still shots, one of him being charged, another of him gripping his chest, another of him screaming. So clearly he has premonitions.
Battle Scenes: The war scenes themselves do have a sense of realism, especially for a 1967 war film. The Higgins Boats of course dump our Marines off several hundred yards out in chest deep water. The whole wave of Marines wades through hell-fire, mortars, artillery and machine-gun fire. Marines wade inland to find some of their buddies blown apart, or charred. One soldier spots an arm floating in the surf. At one point a scared Marine gets his arm blown off, and the scene is probably as gruesome as it gets for a war film in 1967. He is standing in the open, in shock, with his tattered shoulder bleeding. This beach scene lasts about 30 minutes in total, and the rest of the movie shows the Marines creeping inland, facing Japanese bunkers and snipers every 100 yards. So for the war scenes I’ll give them a B-, pretty high for a 1967 war movie.
There are some decent shots of combat action in this movie!
Realism: I never understand how these war movies, made just years after the war, with so many veterans around, get this stuff all wrong. Sure they have their typical Marine uniforms, with their camo helmet covers, and Marine rucks. This part looks adequate. For some reason though, just 22 years post-war these directors could never get accurate tanks. The M-41 Walker Bulldog tanks weren’t yet created by the timeframe used in the film, but for some reason these tanks always sneak into the movies of this era. Cough Patton Cough. Whenever soldiers fire a BAR in these old films they pop off one round at a time. Just use a Garand then! (both shoot the same round). At least in this Hollywood war film the flamethrower guy didn’t get shot in the tank and explode, like they do in 90% of modern war films, and that is 100% inaccurate! I digress. There is also several scenes where Japanese soldiers nab some Marine uniforms to sneak attack the Americans. This trope is old too, and this rarely happened. It never happened as Japanese soldiers wearing a whole Marine uniform. Japanese soldiers would periodically throw on a Marine helmet to try and sneak through the lines, but that’s about the extent of it. For this part I am going to go C+, just because of the uniforms.
Facepalm: always with the wrong tanks!
Acting: For a 1967 war movie, the acting actually wasn’t that bad. You get the cheesy cliche dialogue: “What do you miss about home?” “What are you gonna do when the war is over?” “I need to find me a woman!”. No doubt these always sneak into war films because I’m sure this is what a lot of guys talk about, but the dialogue is the same old stuff. The acting however, I thought was okay. The Japanese soldiers aren’t subtitled so they crush it in the acting department. The Americans while delivering their lines, do it with some emotion, and some pretty convincing performances did come out of this one. Rip Torn is the grizzled Sergeant who dehumanizes his enemy after fighting him for one day, but he does a good job at this. Wilde is pretty good as the torn company commander, who fights through his wounds to carry on the fight! Acting I’ll give a B-.
Japanese scenes don’t have any subtitles, so you have to guess what they’re saying.
Storyline: Typical war movie, typical go from one end of the island to the other. We do get Japanese perspectives, and these scenes are terribly cheesy. A Japanese soldier gets bayoneted and a still-photo of his son’s face flashes before him. While this may be what happens, I don’t know, it is definitely dated and bad. One Japanese soldier has this weird flashback, a video flashback at that, where he sees his naked wife, and two sons swimming in a hot tub, while he creepily grins, watching her. These are just weird parts of the movie. The characters in the flashbacks are wearing 1960’s clothes, and it is a bizarre attempt at art. The movie is definitely plot driven, and the plot is plain ol’ objectives! C.
Dialogue: Cheesy, boring, cliché. Lot’s of talk about girls back home, jobs after the war, mommas cooking, and their experience in the ladies department. D+
Cinematography: I am a nerd for this era of Hollywood, and I love the old cinematography, the old cameras, the old film types, and anything in this department. Cecil Cooney was the cinematographer, and I’d say they did okay in this department. There are some good shots, shots of hidden Japanese bunkers, snipers, a panorama of the bloody beach. For 1967, I’ll go B+.
Scenery: Looks like the Pacific, because it is! Good place to put your pretend Pacific War battle. I’ll go B.
Get across that beach! This is a nice panoramic shot, 1967 style!
Entertainment factor: I enjoyed this movie when it crept past the atrocious flashback scenes, and video shots of their wives. The combat scenes for this era I would say are pretty darn good and there is an attempt at realism. If you want to watch a mindless war film to admire the era of filmmaking, this is your movie. You will have a few laughs, as bad as that sounds, but those awful cut scenes are painful to watch. Other than that though I am going to give this movie a B in the entertainment factor.
Final Analysis: This movie gets a C+ which in all honesty shocks me! I calculate my grades fairly, and I guess this is the grade. There isn’t much to review when it comes to the historical aspects, other than the fundamentals like tactics, uniforms, weapons, vehicles, etc. This movie was flawed, and I never understand how now we can get a dozen M4 Shermans for a modern movie or reenactment, but just 22 years post-war they had to use a modern battle tank? Oh well. More reviews are on the way, for both books and movies, as this week has been giving me a slew of material!
Jesse
History on a Whim
Founder and Historian