Beach Red

Plot synopsis:
The 30-minute opening sequence of the film depicts an opposed beach landing. Its graphic depiction of the violence and savagery of war was echoed thirty one years later in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. In one scene during the landing a Marine is shown with his arm blown off, similar to Thomas C. Lea III's 1944 painting The Price.
As Americans are shown consolidating their gains, flashbacks illustrate the lives of American and Japanese combatants. Shifting first-person voice-over in a stream of consciousness style is also used to portray thoughts of numerous characters. Like Wilde's previous production of The Naked Prey (1965), the film does not use subtitles for characters speaking Japanese.
The film contains large sections of voice-over narration, often juxtaposed with still photographs of wives, etc. (who are inexplicably dressed in 1967 attire rather than that appropriate for the 1940s). Many soldiers in the film shed tears, and the narrative displays an unusual amount of sympathy for the enemy.
In one scene Cliff who is injured is lying close to an injured Japanese soldier in a scene paralleling the one from All Quiet on the Western Front with Paul Bäumer and Gérard Duval. Just after the two soldiers bond, other Marines appear and kill the Japanese soldier, causing distress to the first Marine.
Director, producer, and co-writer Wilde plays a Marine Captain, the company commander. Rip Torn plays his company gunnery sergeant, who utters the film's tagline, "That's what we're here for. To kill. The rest is all crap!"

Tags: anti war, flashback

Review:
He was one of those "sees things in black and white" types of guys, and though he didn't bother to explain it to me, I think the internal monologues, flashbacks, sexual encounters, and humanizing of the enemy in a war film just didn't wash with him.Now, close to 40 years later, I finally saw it for a second time.
I love both movies -- Malick's has things going for it that Wilde's doesn't, such as a physical beauty and a superb score -- but BEACH RED is in some ways the more powerful of the two.
With haunting images and unflinchingly honest dialog, director Cornel Wilde drops a great big bomb on the audience."Beach Red" tells a straightforward story of an American Marine company which assaults a Pacific island, held by fanatical Japanese troops.
The main characters include Captain MacDonald (Cornel Wilde), a former lawyer who hates the war he's forced to fight, and loves his wife and simply wants to return home.
The Japanese are a formidable, foe, yes  but ordinary men with lives and families just like the main American characters.Wilde uses color cinematography ceaselessly and perfectly.
The on-location shooting in the Philippines really gives the battle scenes a look of authenticity not often found in similarly-themed films of the same time period.Wilde doesn't sanitize the graphic nature of war, either.
They should be at home with their girlfriends and families, not sweating, bleeding and dying in the midst of an inconsequential tropical island."Beach Red" is simply one of the great unknown war films.
The immediacy of the  combat scenes is like the end section of 'On The Fiddle' with Sean Connery.Beach Red looks with a rare, cool gaze at the war, this allows us to feel the emotion that is there.
With the addition of colour in a war film this further personalizes the tragedy Wilde & his men have to go through in killing and staying alive.
But Beach Red would have been a still very effective film had it been made in black & white.For War Film buffs, I think many will be stunned by this movie when and if they have not seen it.
BUT he is much younger here, and tough as nails- an intimidating character- his justification for fighting the Japanese and breaking both arms of a prisoner is bad-ass -"I'm a kill 'em, I'm a stab 'em...." Cornel Wilde plays the lead officer- pretty similar to Staros in The Thin Red Line- but he's solid The climax is a bit contrived and perhaps too overly-melodramatic, but it's fine for its time My two knocks- there is a bit too much stock footage in the beginning, and the two main NCOs are boring backwoods idiots.
As an US marine unit formed by Captain MacDonald (Cornel Wilde) , Sergeant Honeywell (Rip Torn) and Privates (Jaime Sánchez , Burr DeBenning , Patrick Wolfe) fight against the defenders of a Japanese held island , both sides are haunted by their own thoughts and memories ; as battle experience hardens soldiers .
It's a good stuff for young people and war movie lovers who enjoy enormously with the extraordinary battles in the lush jungle.Other fundamental tales based on Pacific landings were the followings : ¨Thin red line¨ by Andrew Marton with Keir Dullea and Jack Warden and ¨Thin red line¨ directed by Terence Malick with star-laden cast as Jim Cazievel as Private protagonist , Sean Penn as the Sergeant , and many others as George Clooney, Nick Nolte and Woody Harrelson .
BEACH RED shows the same flaws that made the film version of John Christopher's novel NO BLADE OF GRASS a memorable movie for the most bizarre reasons .
In this movie that was made three years previously Wilde has a similar sledgehammer approach which works slightly better but even so you'll remember this film due to its storytelling more than its actual story From the outset you can see BEACH RED is a war film with a difference but tries just a little too hard .
Likewise the Vietnam War was escalating and throughout the narrative there's a strong element that just because the enemy is not from a WASP nation it doesn't necessarily make them evil because the enemy is still human It's impossible to mention BEACH RED without mentioning later , better , more critically acclaimed films namely APOCALYPSE NOW , THE THIN RED LINE and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN .
Beach Red sees soldiers face up to their innermost fears and regrets during the bloody battle for a Pacific island.
In Beach Red this environment is lush and dangerous, full of both natural and human perils (at one point the director gives a litany of killer flora and fauna), but one where the greatest threat to man is Man himself.Some critics have compared Wilde's cinema to that of Sam Fuller.
(A difference in worldview that explains why Fuller made a string of excellent noir films while Wilde only made one.)Those who have seen Saving Private Ryan will feel right at home here, and not just with the painful introspection of MacDonald as he struggles with duty.
This honesty means that we can overlook the odd cliché in his Beach Red, and enjoy it as one of the best war films..
War is not pretty but this movie attempts to show you the inner thoughts of the individual soldier both the Americans and the Japanese.
I really had trouble sitting through this movie and not fast forwarding through it but since I bought it I actually wasted the full run time watching it.It is a lot like A Thin Red Line (which I could not sit through either).
As I watched Beach Red, I couldn't help but think that no one would have a problem dating this picture as a product of the 1960's.This is not Band of Brothers or As Trumpets Fade (two of my Favorite War movies).
If you want to see a good Pacific theater war movie, then watch Sands of Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal Diary or Wake Island.
There are many wonders in this film.*An opening sequence of a beach landing with as much, if not more, intensity as Spielberg's later "Saving Private Ryan".
*Unforgiving and lingering imagery allowing us the time and space to add our own flaws, our own intimacies, our own doubts to the conflicts we are watching.This is the futility of war in stark colour, played out by people who do not understand why it should be necessary to fight a war but are forced, by circumstance, to live it out until they too are fallen corpses or survivors for yet another day of 'action'.Cornel Wilde gets the balance spot on using characters and action to nullify any sense of justification for what we see.
I've seen this film on it's own merit and here is what I think."Beach Red" is surely one of the strangest and most different war movies of all times, and is particularly original for it's era.
One of the reviewers objected that flashbacks show the women of principal American characters with 60's makeup,hairstyles and their homes furnished in 60's style, but they missed that the Japenese women and children were all shown in traditional surroundings and clothes and that's just the point Wilde wanted to make, a great difference in the way of living and culture, and draw a parallel between all wars between cultures from WWII to Vietnam.
There is a link between than and now, war is always the same only the settings are different, and that is very well shown in "Beach Red", in which Japanese soldiers don't conveniently speak English with Japanese accent, but Japanese and act like them.
BEACH RED is one of the most straight-faced and poignant visions of World War II, featuring a lot more heart and humanity than most others of the era and production values which betray its small budget.Wilde had more creative control over this than any of his other projects and used it as nothing less than a damning condemnation of war not seen since ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.
Long before Saving Private Ryan and the notice taken of the rather graphic combat sequences, Cornel Wilde produced, directed, and starred in Beach Red which was 30 years before Saving Private Ryan.
Also in Wilde's own flashback is his wife Jean Wallace whom he always tried to have parts for in his films.The marines land and the Japanese retreat as per usual in Pacific war films and the war itself.
Their good natured rivalry carries a lot of the film.As a harbinger of Saving Private Ryan, Beach Red was years ahead of its time.
If you are a fan of war films, you cannot go wrong with Beach Red..
It’s an unflinching depiction of warfare – with a surprising amount of gore for the time, punctuated by touches of dark humor – which must have influenced Steven Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998), even down to having the first third of it consisting of one seemingly endless battle.The film, however, also anticipates Terrence Malick’s THE THIN RED LINE (1998) by 30 years in its pre-occupation with the soldiers’ domestic lives (via multi-character narration and flashbacks) – but, commendably, takes care to show that of the enemy as well.
The only familiar names are Wilde himself (as the platoon leader – appropriately war-weary yet staunchly dedicated to his men), Rip Torn (as his tough-as-nails lieutenant) and “guest star” Jean Wallace (Wilde’s real-life spouse playing his on-screen wife as well in a few flashback instances and singing the film’s melancholy title song).
For the first few minutes i thought this might be good but during the landing i knew it was just gonna be a wreck.......i even kept watching while cornel wilde held his .45 like an ice cream cone.......constantly......i've never seen a handgun held that way except by a small child......it is just sad with all the money he must have spent on this it is just incredible that everyone who hated this movie was absolutely correct..........i was gonna keep watching so i could see the goof with the guys running around in the background in blue jeans and sneakers but i couldn't stand the awful dialogue, the terrible direction, the goofy narration and the us marines portrayed as girl scouts any longer so i'll never know or care how it ends..........i did get to the plastic spoon used for the canned bean eating though........that was funny......1945....white plastic spoon.....ha!.......i actually have my uncles 3 utensil METAL cutlery set he used in the pacific......the kind that fits together and slides apart while in use.......i also enjoyed whenever an actor was going to shoot a weapon in a number of scenes and the gun didn't or wouldn't fire when in the context of the scene it was clearly supposed to...........and i'm sure they said we'll just leave it in because it looks real when in actuality the actor made no effort to "clear" or un-jam the thing as would a real marine......it just looked so stupid..........something that should have been re-shot or left on the cutting room floor.All in all, just a waste of time..........a real boring, kind of weird stinker and probably the reason wilde only directed two more films after this..
Cornel Wilde stars as the captain in charge of a platoon; Rip Torn plays a sergeant who's allowed the war to fill him with hate; Burr DeBenning, Patrick Wolfe and Jaime Sánchez co-star as genuine young Americans struggling between fulfilling their duty and simply wanting to survive.I call the film "Groundbreaking" because of the obvious influence it had on two popular war flicks made thirty years later – "Saving Private Ryan" and, especially, "The Thin Red Line." The first half hour chronicles the brutal beach landing, which is very reminiscent of the former film while the next 20 minutes show the troops infiltrating the interior a la the latter.
The interior monologues of the characters, the flashbacks to life back at home and the contrast between war and the innocence & beauty of nature were all borrowed by Terrance Malick for "The Thin Red Line." That said, "Beach Red" itself borrows from previous films, like 1957's "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and the original "The Thin Red Line" from 1964, amongst others.
Here we get to see the horrors of it.Not only that, but writer-director-actor Cornel Wilde tries to humanize the soldiers, showing them in more peaceful times, and their thoughts and motivations.
Worst of the lot is Burr Debenning as Egan - incredibly irritating and unconvincing.Terrence Malick would later successfully execute the ideas of daydream sequences to humanize soldiers and nature as counterpoint to war in "The Thin Red Line" (1998).
Cooney.A unit of terrified American soldiers attempt to take a beachhead defended by the Japanese army.Unfairly something of an obscure war movie, Beach Red is a raw and uncompromising viewing experience.
What starts off like any other war film (storming the beaches at Normandy) rapidly turns on its ear, as the fears and thoughts of numerous soldiers are developed via a series of interwoven flashbacks.So despite all the action and violence, it's the film's peaceful moments that linger, Director Cornel Wilde making the point that, at its core, war is an abominable, avoidable and unnecessary interruption, and that every human being has the right to lead a peaceful existence.Throughout the film, many of the characters have flashbacks of their domestic lives before the fighting.
Wilde gives us flashbacks and memories from both points of view - the US troops and the Japanese - and often presents them as still photographs and sound grabs, intercutting them at intervals to show that they are rapidly fleeting thoughts, darting through the soldiers minds at all times.On the flip side, the sheer mindlessness of the fighting is ably portrayed by the elemental drive of the story.
They swarm en masse across sand, dirt and grass for the first part of the film, crawling and crouching (the camera is kept at ground level) until they are able to move upright, at which point a narrator tells us that all the hostile insects in the jungle ahead are Japanese.Dwarfed by the natural environment of the island, these soldiers may as well be rival ant colonies at war.
By sympathising with the Japanese and showing the war through their eyes, Wilde's film also makes a great companion piece to Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima"..
We certainly don't need anymore "America saves the world" movies shot in 'Nam. Beach red looks like it was shot in my backyard!
Beach Red could have been a great war movie.
Watch it alone; that you are not looking for reactions from another, trusting that they might feel, what you experience with this examination of war.Cornel Wilde...
Although it's a clunky, over-dramatic war-is-heller, once again, Wilde finds some interesting ways to tell his story of the US Marines and Japanese soldiers fighting for an island in the South Pacific.
A platoon of American soldiers lead by the rugged, but humane Captain MacDonald (superbly played by Cornel Wilde) and the mean, bloodthirsty Gunnery Sergeant Honeywell (a chilling performance by the always excellent Rip Torn) embark on a dangerous mission to find a Japanese base on a remote island in the Pacific.
Wilde's steady, assured, if rather ragged direction and the gritty, incisive script by Wilde, Don Peters and Clint Johnston astutely nails the chaos, horror and brutality of war: the movie opens on a gripping note with a fierce and harrowing protracted battle sequence, the violence is shockingly gory and graphic (arms are blown off, severed limbs litter the ground, mangled bodies are strewn about, and so on), the characters' thoughts serve as philosophical narration, the tone remains stark, frank and unflinching throughout, and there are poignant flashbacks for both the American and Japanese soldiers alike in order to show how everyone is basically the same.
The Americans too have memories during a lull in the fighting and the all-pervading feeling is "Why are we doing this to each other?" Towards the end of the film, the older Japanese soldier is killed by Cliff and Egan and the young recruit confronts them.
BEACH RED is an intriguing war picture, directed by and starring Cornel Wilde, who is a bit long in the tooth for his role but otherwise sound.
This is a mildly experimental bit of film-making that takes a psychological approach to a battle, depicting the frightened wits of the young soldiers involved, plonking them into a brutal beach landing and then some claustrophobic jungle combat.What I particularly liked about this film is its stylistic approach, courtesy of Wilde.
At height of the Second World War, US marines storm the beach of a Japanese held island.
Soldiers fighting on both sides can only ease their deep emotional pain by reflecting on their peaceful pre war lives...Directed and produced by Cornel Wilde who also co-wrote and starred as the main character, Beach Red has a few very minor flaws which can be overlooked because of this.
Despite being a murky film which is unflinching in it's brutality, Beach Red is extremely colourful for a war movie.
Apart from this scene and a few other exceptions, Beach Red is not an excessively gory film, although the use of bloody closeups when characters are wounded really added to the realism.
The first time I saw this film I personally felt rather nervous when watching this scene, as if I was a Marine about to storm the beach.The film's anti war overtones evoke a Vietnam allegory.
After breaking the Japanese Captain's arms, Honeywell is chastised by MacDonald and the dialogue exchanged between the two characters makes this scene probably the best in the film.
Beach Red. Pretty average Pacific Island war film, it has Cornel Wilde (who also directed) and Rip Torn in it, which isn't saying much.