Excellent, Without a doubt!!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Released in 1967, "Beach Red" details a US Marine assault on a Japanese-held Pacific island during WWII, possibly Saipan (June-July 1944) or Guam (July-August 1944). 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. After the first 12 minutes intro, the next 45-50 minutes are all action. 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. Unfortunately, "Beach Red" lacks the budget of the renowned "River Kwai," but it ain't no cheap flick either.The film typically gets mixed reviews with some people calling it a masterpiece and others a 1-Star piece of sheet. The former focus on the film's positives while the latter zero-in on its shortcomings, which revolve around its relative low-budget and datedness. I was able to overlook these deficiencies in favor of the movie's realistic, pensive and brutal tone and all-around ambitiousness. The single musical theme is a melancholic and moving folk song by Antonino Buenaventura sung by Cornel's wife Jean Wallace. Wilde impressively wrote and directed the movie. It's an action-packed war flick, but also artistic, reflective and haunting. Neanderthalic gung-ho types love the former, but are turned-off by the latter, which explains the mixed reviews.The movie runs 105 minutes and was shot in the Philippines and Japan.GRADE: B+

I find it hard to believe most of the other reviews of this film.Sure, it points out that war of any kind isn't a walk in the park, but the presentation was dreadful.The acting was abysmal. The early sequences before landing clearly used the old Hollywood trick of close-ups of actors in front of a projected background, shots (particularly of machine gun positions) kept getting re-used in different locations and the action was repeatedly interrupted by the leads drifting off into dreamland.I gave up shortly after MacDonald saw a Japanese soldier recovering after a grenade attack pulling a pistol to shoot a nearby American. MacDonald, who had his .45 in his hand just stood there yelling a warning and only used his weapon after the American was killed. That's really the kind of leader you want watching your back. Not!

Director and actor Cornel Wilde who also created the classic flick, The Naked Prey 1966 has created another gem in Beach Red.Starring Cornel Wilde who was also in his classic flick, The Naked Prey.Also starring Gert Van den Bergh who was also in Cornel Wilde's classic flick, The Naked Prey.Also starring Ken Gampu who was also in Cornel Wilde's classic flick, The Naked Prey.I enjoyed the violent battle scenes.If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic World War II flicks, Das Boot 1981, The Bridge at Remagen 1969, Cross of Iron 1977, The Dirty Dozen 1967, Downfall 2004, Enemy at the Gates 2001, The Expendables 1988, The Inglorious Bastards 1978, Inglourious Basterds 2009, The Longest Day 1962, A Midnight Clear 1992, The Pianist 2002, Saving Private Ryan 1998, Schindler's List 1993, Stalingrad 1993, Story of G.I. Joe 1945, The Thin Red Line 1998, The Thin Red Line 1964, Went the Day Well? 1942, When Trumpets Fade 1998, My Way 2011, Fury 2014, Hacksaw Ridge 2016, Dunkirk 2017 and Where Eagles Dare 1968.

Beach Red could have been a great war movie. It has great scenery, good photography, a good story and a pretty good cast. A WWII US Marine movie with Rip Torn as a Gunny has to try very hard to not be good. But this movie went above and beyond in it's headlong rush towards mediocrity. Beach Red doesn't even get started before getting boring. Cornel Wilde, as Capt. MacDonald is just dull. His constant musing, in the form of out loud thoughts, gets more and more annoying as the movie goes on. Even more annoying is the constant whining by Patrick Wolfe (Pvt. Cliff). I guess the director (Cornel Wilde) really, really liked him because he gets more close ups than Mister Ed did in the TV show Mister Ed. And his attempts to show emotion through facial expressions gets pretty nauseating. Mister Ed was better at that and he was a horse. Mister Ed was a better actor too.Overall this movie, along with Thin Red Line, suffers from what I refer to as a hippie influence. It has a campy feel to it. The overbearing music and constant flashbacks to family, women from the past and even a cockroach getting stepped on gets annoying after a while. The explosions are not very good and most of the guys that get killed fall over in cartoon fashion. The combat scenes are mediocre and fail to make you feel like you are there. Somehow a sniper manages to shoot two guys with one bullet. Not impossible but unlikely when he's above them, in a tree. At one point Pvt. Cliff is on a patrol and gets sergeant stripes halfway through. Later, on the same patrol, he doesn't have them anymore. Close ups of various bugs and flowers says hippie to me.There are some good points. Burr DeBenning, as Egan, provides a bit of comedy and the less annoying flashbacks. Rip Torn is good as a tough as nails marine Gunnery Sergeant. Jaime Sánchez plays a marine who wants nothing more than to get out of the war alive and will take any opportunity to get out but still does his job. The guys playing the Japanese officers seem to be pretty good actors but the enlisted guys don't. They are mostly young so maybe they were just inexperienced. There's a pretty good attempt by the japs to pull a surprise attack which is the climax of the movie and at least brings some war to this war movie. The Japanese are portrayed as real soldiers too and have their own flashbacks. They speak Japanese but there's no subtitles. You can usually figure out what's being said though so it's not too important. As usual they get mowed down by the dozen but they really did in the war so it's a fair cop. If they ever tried the sneak attack plan as shown in Beach Red, I've never heard of it. But I thought it added some tension to this rather dull war movie.In the end I toss it on the pile with a bunch of other mediocre war movies and give it 6/10. Worth a watch.