Airborne

If you are looking for a late rainy night film, this cornball fluff of a movie will do. Routine story of a group of soldiers who go through airborne training and after a few side tracks bond and live happily ever after.Child star Bobby Diamond gives a decent performance as a nice country boy. Cult actor Mikel "Mike" Angel as Mouse steals the show. Good clean fun with a cast of obscure actors.

This independent film produced by one Art Diamond was a vehicle for another Diamond named Bobby. After the Fury series ended young Bobby Diamond was footloose and this was no doubt to be a film that would establish him on the big screen. Bobby Diamond for the rest of his career until he became a lawyer would be cast in these youthful roles.

Diamond is a youthful volunteer for the Airborne service, wanting to be a paratrooper like his uncle who saw service in World War II. But this kid makes Gomer Pyle look like Noel Coward. His character is impossibly naive.

Airborne is not much more than a recruiting film for the Airborne Rangers. It was shot at Fort Bragg and many officers and enlistees at the time play roles here. Having been a weekend warrior a decade later almost, I can testify to the fact that country kids like Bobby Diamond's character are the rule, not the exception in the army. Knowing that fact and seeing the way he was teased because of his country ways just rings too impossibly untrue.

Airborne may have been shot at Fort Bragg, but it was shot on a minuscule budget. The side romance for Diamond could have been done away with, the film just should have concentrated on the training.

The film is dedicated to the 82nd Airborne, but the 82nd Airborne deserves a whole lot better.

I went through Jump School at Fort Campbell in June 1961 near the time of this movie. At Campbell you went to the Jump School area while still in Replacement Detachment and made one exit from the 34 foot tower before being assigned to your unit. It was fun ,not, being one of three legs in a company of airborne qualified troopers. No chance of blending into a group. I flunked the PT test for admission twice and did PT every day for the six weeks in between. I passed on the third and last chance. The time in Jump School while demanding was easy compared to time in the Company. One major difference I noted was our Black Hats would constantly make the lead group drop out and get gigs on the run. Then you had to haul ass to catch back up. We did not have a fan for the quick release from your chute. We were drug by a 3/4 ton vehicle. Dirt would build up in the releases and pose a challenge to activate the releaser. One thing they really missed was if one of The Black Hats got your number and circulated it you would never graduate Jump School. Someone posted about the 250 tower. None of the Unit Jump Schools had that only the Primary School at Benning has that feature. We did have the station where you ran through and got soaked down. Consequently our boots did not have to stand tall and we did not have to break starch every day. Movie was totally hokey but I enjoyed the Jump School part of the film.

Airborne concerns a group of recruits to the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division as they undergo basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Really that's it. Not that it's uninteresting or bad. The characters are generally relatable and it's largely educational about basic training (in that the film includes several clips of training exercises and activities. If you think you'd find that interesting then there enjoy. If not, I'd skip this one because there's really not a whole lot else that happens.

This so-so drama purports to tell the story of a new paratrooper in the 82nd division of the army. Eddie Slocum is a wet behind the ears kid who has dreams of becoming a paratrooper just like his Uncle Charlie. As is custom with movies like this, he meets up with a motley of crew members all from different backgrounds, like Rocky, the bully of the group, and Mouse, the uh, jive-talking "lover" of the group. Anyways, they all get put through exercises, and we get to follow them, and actually this is all very interesting. However some 'Drama' develops when Eddie meets a doe-eyed country girl by the name of Jenny May. And well, the love interest side falls flat, because the actress playing her is sort of a airhead, and since her character really is no one we should care about, we just wait around to get the action pumping again (sort of like Top Gun actually). The ending is sort of lovey dovey too with the new chutists, as well, but all in all, I enjoyed this.