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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
Film:4
DVD:4
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| Hollywood
never produced a Target: Guderian or Mission: Manstein...
But it did raid Rommel. |
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Field
Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) — the "Desert Fox"
of military legend — is by far the most famous German general
of World War II. He was the only one of Hitler's commanders to
really capture the imagination of the British and American public.
Only a few short years after the most devastating conflict in
human history, American film studio 20th-Century Fox released
The Desert
Fox (1951), a sympathetic portrayal of the man
who, under the Nazi banner, had inflicted some of the most stinging
defeats on the Western Allies. This was a sharp reversal from
Rommel's propagandized treatment by Hollywood in Five
Graves to Cairo, made during the war when Rommel was still
alive and fighting for Hitler. (That 1943 film has Erich von Stroheim
playing him as an aloof, swaggeringly arrogant fascist.) After
James Mason appeared as Rommel in The Desert
Fox and The Desert Rats (1953,
with Richard Burton), the famous general occasionally began popping
up in other post-WWII war films made in the U.S., Britain and
Italy, mostly in highly fictionalized scenarios — but never as
an evil or hateful character, always the honorable enemy. 1971's
Raid on Rommel is just such a film,
depicting the legendary panzer leader as an enthusiastic stamp
collector! |
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Almost
two decades after The Desert Rats,
Richard Burton gets another crack at the vaunted Afrika Korps.
He plays Captain Foster, a British commando on a desperate top
secret mission in 1943 Libya. Passing himself off as a corporal,
the only survivor of an ambushed British patrol, Foster allows
himself to be captured by the Germans — specifically the unit
commanded by Hauptmann Schroeder (Karl-Otto Alberty of
Kelly's Heroes). From intelligence
sources he knows that Schroeder's convoy is scheduled to deliver
a platoon of captured British commandos to the Axis-controlled
port of Tobruk. Foster's plan is to liberate the prisoners, take
over the convoy, drive into Tobruk dressed in German uniforms
and then attack and destroy the long-range coastal guns guarding
the town's harbor. Foster and the commandos are to be taken off
the beach by the Royal Navy once the heavy artillery is knocked
out. |
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This
(rather improbable) scheme starts to fall apart almost immediately.
Foster is picked up by Schroeder's convoy as planned, but he learns
from the other prisoners that only five of them are commandos;
the majority are from a medical unit, led by the pacifistic Major
Tarkington (Clinton Greyn), and aren't trained to fight. (At least
one of the medics is a conscientious objector who refuses to kill
because of his religion.) Also unexpected is the presence of a
beautiful woman (Danielle de Metz), the mistress of an Italian
general being chauffered to Tobruk by the accommodating Germans.
Foster, however, is undeterred; he and the other five commandos
— with the aid of a well-timed air attack — make their play to
take over the convoy... |
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The
casual viewer might give this film at least a passing grade, perhaps
thinking that, while it's a bit dull at times and often seems
to be just going through the motions, the movie at least features
some explosive action scenes and spectacular effects (for their
time) during the climax. But only if that viewer had never
seen Arthur Hiller's Tobruk (1967)
— from which every cool (or even mildly exciting) sequence in
Raid on Rommel has been directly
pilfered. You've definitely got a dog on your hands when all the
best parts of a movie are comprised of footage lifted lock, stock
and barrel from another film. The air attack, the destruction
of the fuel depot, the assault on the big coastal guns... Yep,
all that stuff was originally shot for Tobruk
(also a Universal release) some four years earlier. Which means
that Raid was quite the miserly production.
The script was obviously written with those Tobruk
sequences firmly in mind; the producers then signed Burton and
the other actors, wrangled a few WWII surplus vehicles, set up
some tents in Mexico's Baja desert (a decent enough substitute
for North Africa, it must be said), and voila! Instant
war movie. |
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It
seems a bit odd that Henry Hathaway, only two years after helming
the very successful True Grit (the
original), would direct such a cheap B-grade potboiler. He does
so in journeyman style, getting everyone from Point A to Point
B well enough, but it is the action footage from Tobruk
that does all the heavy lifting. (At least the editor did a decent
job of incorporating it.) Perhaps Hathaway — whose credits include
Kiss of Death (1947) and Niagara
(1953) — was hired because he had also directed the first Hollywood
Rommel movie, The Desert Fox, 20
years earlier. |
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For
his part Burton isn't giving it his all here but at least he's
not blatantly phoning it in. (He's also more physically active,
not hobbling about and fobbing everything off on his stuntman
as he would in action roles by the end of the decade.) Greyn is
earnest enough in his role of the principled British army doctor;
since he's given so little to do, reliable character actor John
Colicos barely registers as a commando sergeant. Alberty overacts
like mad as the fiercely Teutonic Afrika Korps captain,
grimacing and barking orders. Yummy Danielle de Metz was obviously
parachuted in merely for a bit of sex appeal/eye candy — she's
the only female in the cast — and ends up having little if any
impact on the story. (The superior 1968 Italian film Commandos,
also dealing with a secret Allied mission in WWII Libya, does
virtually the same thing with Marilù Tolo.) That she looks like
a model from an early '70s fashion shoot doesn't exactly help
the film's sense of veracity. |
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So
where does Rommel himself fit into all this? He's played by Wolfgang
Preiss (of the Dr. Mabuse film series), a fine actor but in an
unhistorial portrayal. (What does that matter? The rest of the
film doesn't pass the smell test in that regard, either.) On the
drive into Tobruk, Foster and Tarkington have a significant encounter
with der Wüsten Fuchs... during which the fabled field
marshal spends almost the entire time waxing enthusiastically
over his prized stamp collection. (???) |
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| Like
Warner and MGM before it, Universal has jumped into the "made
on demand" (MOD) game with its Vault Series, issuing
Raid on Rommel as one of these DVD-R
titles. Quality of the anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer is quite good,
taken from a master print in fine overall shape. The digital mono
audio track is similarly commendable. There is no menu screen
(although chapter-stops are encoded every 10 minutes); when the
disc reaches the end of the movie it simply starts playing again
from the beginning. |
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NOTE:
In my opinion some of the major companies issuing these MOD titles
aren't exactly being consumer friendly. They are not pressed
discs; none of them should cost more than $15. (Universal's
are in the $20 range, while most of Warner's titles are $25 and
up.) I always knock down my DVD Rating a point or two for this
very reason. 8/13/11 |
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