Gesta de sangre

A young soldier (Bakalyan) feels he is jinxed...can never do anything right.....fellow soldiers agree with him, and persecute him in combat. Good low-budget war flick, featuring "unknown" cast. Of course our anti-hero redeems himself in the bullet laden conclusion.

"Paratroop Command" is not a typical sort of war film. It's from the ultra-cheap studio, American International Pictures. And, it's not really about a company or squad of men...more the story of one hard luck soldier during WWII.

When the story begins, Charlie (Richard Bakalyan) shoots a member of his own company....though it really isn't his fault. After all, the dead guy was dressed as a German soldier and was waving his fun about as if he was going to shoot Charlie's fellow soldiers! But one member of the company hounds Charlie...telling him that he murdered this man! And, through the course of the film, Charlie works had to overcome this distinction.

Despite the film being cheap and obviously filmed in California instead of North Africa and Italy, the story itself is sound and works because of it. While not a brilliant film by any means, it's a good example of a cheap movie done right.

Meh. Way too unrealistic except for most of the uniforms..

In the short running time of 71 minutes Paratroop Command follows a small group of soldiers participating in landing in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno which in actual time was about a year and a half. One of them, Richard Bakalyn accidentally kills one of his comrades in friendly fire and can't quite win the trust of the other men, including his lieutenant Ken Lynch.

Not that the incident was his fault, it wasn't. In fact it was a rather stupid way for the other guy to get killed if you watch the movie. Still Bakalyn just can't get the others to trust him.

Directing Paratroop Command is William Witney who was one of Herbert J. Yates's best B western directors. He directed films with all of Republic's western stars. His grind them out style honed with years working for Yates shows in Paratroop Command.

Nothing terribly special here, just some veteran movie makers doing their thing.

It's good to see veteran character actor Richard Bakalyan in pretty much anything, and he gets to show his stuff in this low-budget WW II "epic" from American-International and action specialist William Witney. Ken Lynch, a familiar face who specialized in playing tough cops and soldiers, is also quite good as an officer who leads his squad of paratroopers in a jump behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, the film itself isn't up to the talents of Bakalyan, Lynch or Witney. The supporting performances range from sub-par to embarrassing--not particularly surprising considering the hack script by producer Stan Shpetner--and the action scenes are poorly handled by the usually reliable Witney. The film is worth a look if you're a Dick Bakalyan fan, but otherwise there's not much else to recommend it.