Les paras attaquent

One of the perks of a wartime tour of duty in Italy seems to have been stumbling upon local senoritas skinny dipping - since it happens again here - and meeting foxy nurses like Patricia Huston.

Slickly directed on what is obviously a reasonable budget for once by Tarantino's idol William Witney (although any footage of paratroopers actually jumping is inevitably stock footage), the cast is led by veterans Richard Bakalyan ('Chinatown') and Ken Lynch ('North by Northwest') in what feels strongly like a TV production whenever the action transfers to the soundstage.

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

This film was screened on Sony Movies Action the other evening, so I recorded it. I gave up after 15 minutes (so I missed the skinny-dipping scene mentioned by another reviewer). The battle scene (actually just a skirmish) went on and on, and it was difficult to distinguish who was who, not helped by none of the actors being familiar.

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.