I've no real idea why Alan Ladd shot three films in England in 1953 and 1954 though I guess my speculation is as good as that of the next guy. He shot to stardom in 1942 and, under contract to Paramount, appeared in a string of box-office successes throughout the decade. He was never going to give us his Hamlet, Macbeth, Hotspur etc, but he did have a nice line in effortless charm and knew how to carry a gun authentically. By the early fifties his kind of thick-ear melodrama was on the wane (yet ironically his greatest role, in the finest film with which he was ever associated (Shane) came right after Red Beret. I don't know whether it was written into his contract but his was the highest profile by a country mile and the Producers surrounded him with whatever members of the Second Eleven - Leo Genn, Donald Houson, Stanley Bker, Patrick Doonan, Harry Andrews et al who weren't working at the time and, for good measure, gave him a charisma-free non-actress with all the sex appeal of a wart hog. The plot? Don't ask. A natural leader Ladd consistently refuses to become an officer and the reason is, of course, that he blames himself for the death of a friend whilst both were serving in the US armed forces. Just about passes the time.
Review of Paratrooper
