Beach Red

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beach Red is a 1967 World War II film starring Cornel Wilde (who also directed) and Rip Torn. The film depicts a landing by the U.S. Marine Corps on an unnamed Japanese held Pacific island. It is based on a lengthy piece of prose, not quite a novel written by Peter Bowman based on his experiences with the US Army in the Pacific Islands campaigns.

The opening sequence of an opposed beach landing bear some resemblance to 'Saving Private Ryan', even though there is more than thirty years between the productions.

The film then moves on, showing the Americans consolidating their gains and it looks back at the lives of some of the combatants - both American and Japanese. Like Wilde's previous production of The Naked Prey the film does not use subtitles for the Japanese.

The film only has one musical theme, a song by written Antonino Buenaventura that appears in the titles sung in a folk song manner by Jean Wallace and appears in various different orchestrations throughout the film. The titles of the film are various paintings that suddenly segues into the preparations for the landing.

Director, producer, and co-writer Wilde plays a Marine Captain the company commander, Rip Torn plays his believable company gunnery sergeant who says the film's tagline "That's what we're here for. To kill. The rest is all bull!" .

[edit] Production

The film was filmed on location in the Philippines using troops of the Philippine Armed Forces. The sequence of the Japanese dressed in Marine uniforms was inspired by the original book mentioning Japanese wearing American helmets to infiltrate American lines.
When seeking assistance from the U.S. Marine Corps, Cornel Wilde was told that due to the commitments of the Vietnam War all the Corps could provide the film was color stock footage taken during the Pacific Island campaigns. The film provided had deteriorated so Wilde had to spend a considerable part of the film's budget to restore the film to an acceptable quality in order to blend into the film. The Marine Corps was grateful that their historical film had been restored at no cost to them.