Raid on Rommel (1971)

Am I Missing Something?

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Overall this movie was poorly done. The plot has been used many times before and the low light filming is very grainy. There is a lot of low light filming so it stands out right from the beginning.Then they sort of judge World War II by 70's vietnam views by adding a medic who is a conscientious objector. He refuses to fight when the Brits take over the German convoy. A wwii movie should have the value systems of the 1940's, not the 1970's. The British knew why they were fighting the Germans. They added a lady character for no reason, she has no development and serves no purpose other then to have something to look at I guess.I liked Karl-Otto Alberty in his small role from 'Kelly's heroes so seeing him again in 'Raid on Rommel' was fun. He just fits the German soldier role so well. Wolfgang Preiss was excellent playing as Rommel. So the film does have some good points. At the end the party of what looked to be no more than 2 dozen men loses about 50 men and still has 50 men when they take the shore batteries. This is from using film from a previous movie and just slapping it together haphazardly. The movie should have ended after the tank scene at the fuel dump. If it had ended there I think I could rate it higher.

Libya 1943 . After almost three years of bitter desert warfare , Rommel's brilliant use of his Panzer divisions has driven the British into a position of desperation . The fate of the Mediterranean hangs in balance . The British troops are in progress toward the North Africa to battle the army of the Third Reich . The key point to carry out an action of attack results to be Tubruk, a shelter for Rommel and the Nazi troops, which is protected with all kinds of artillery , including powerful guns . The only option to destroy Tubruk is infiltrating an allied command, led by a British captain posing as a Nazi officer , in this area occupied by the Germans . Captain Foster (Richard Burton , though Robert Stack was initially cast) plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand-picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector . Along the way they must pass through Alix line disguised as German soldiers and they pick up and drug the lover of an Italian general called Vivi (Danielle De Metz) , blow up the entire fuel supply for the Afrika Korps, and contacts philatelic gossip with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Wolfgang Preiss who was famous for playing Nazis in Second World War films)and takes on headstrong officer Schroeder (Karl-Otto Alberty). Despite all odds they succeed with their assignment . There actually was a raid on Tobruk, 13-14 September 1942, including the German-Jewish SIG and fake British POWs .This thrilling wartime picture contains high-powered action-packed, shootouts , grand-scale blow-up , thrills and lots of fun ; though turns out to be average and embarrassing . The film belongs the sub-genre of warfare commandos , being highlighted by a stirring and thrilling climax with overwhelming action scenes. This sub-genre began with "The Guns of Navarone", following : ¨Dirty dozen¨ , ¨Kelly's heroes¨,and ¨When the eagles dare¨ . "Raid on Rommel" is one of the several examples of how an exhausted formula followed throughout the decade of the 1960 and early 1970. The picture bears remarkable resemblance to ¨Tobruk¨ (Arthur Hiller) , in fact portions of the film were edited into this 1971 Richard Burton film Raid on Rommel (1971) and nearly all the action scenes was footage taken from Tobruk. The greater interest to see is Richard Burton's interpretation of on the screen, but hardly have any virtue . Burton had previously appeared in two other Second World War movies set in North Africa prior to this film , as he played Captain Leith in Bitter victory (1957), fourteen years earlier and Captain 'Tammy' MacRoberts in Desert Rats (1953), eighteen years earlier. The film has a development of a very simple and plain plot with plenty of nonsense situations , sticky events ,absurd events and many other silly things .Colorful cinematography by Earl Rath , it was filmed on location at San Felipe, Mexico, San Felipe is in the Baja California Norte region of Mexico . Lively and jolly musical score by Hal Mooney . The motion picture was regularly by Henry Hathaway who was Hathaway's only WW II movie which wasn't made by Fox, it was made by Universal ; it was a massive flop and was quickly withdrawn from theaters . ¨Raid on Rommel" was quickly relegated to the small screen, having its television premiere on NBC . Henry had directed twenty years earlier the classic 20th Century-Fox movie about Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and also set in World War II North Africa, ¨Rommel¨, (1951). Hathaway's other movies about the Second World War were all for studio Twentieth Century-Fox and included ¨The House on 92nd Street¨ (1945); ¨Wing and a Prayer¨ (1944); ¨You're in the Navy Now¨ (1951) and ¨13 Rue Madeleine¨ (1947).

There are a number of inaccuracies, but that's fine, not all war movies have to be historically accurate, but with that said, it just isn't a very good movie. Some of the silly things thrown in for reasons unknown: suddenly during a battle a speech by Hitler is heard, but not being listened to on a radio, just part of the soundtrack; when the Italians are being killed with the flamethrower suddenly we hear some kind of prayer in Italian, but again, part of the soundtrack; when the Quaker medical officer dies we hear his lines about being a conscientious objector replayed. We're treated to just a number of nonsensical additions or gimmicks that just don't work. Additionally, the special effects are OK, but not great and they weren't great when they were used the first time in "Tobruk", a much better movie. Lastly, I swear Richard Burton, while dressed as a German captain and speaking to a German enlisted man, asked for the telephone in English. I listened a few times and I'm sure of it. I'm glad I watched this, but I seriously doubt I'll never watch it again.

Admittedly, Henry Hathaway's "Raid on Rommel" isn't the masterpiece that Brian Hutton's "Where Eagles Dare" was for Richard Burton, but this low-budget World War II epic about an unlikely British commando unit operating behind Nazi lines in North Africa doesn't qualify as a complete bust. Richard M. Bluel's screenplay is predictable but entertaining for the most part. Sure, better movies about the British North African campaign have been made going back as early as "The Desert Rats of Tobruk" (1944) and then in the 1950s came Hathaway's own "The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel" (1951), followed by Robert Wise's "The Desert Rats" (1953), Nicholas Ray's "Bitter Victory" (1957), Terence Young's "No Time to Die" (1958), Arthur Hiller's "Tobruk" (1967), and one of the very best and most grim: Andre de Toth's "Play Dirty" (1969). "Raid on Rommel" deserves no Oscars or special recognition of any kind, but it is an amenable way to spend 99 minutes.Indeed, "Major Payne" producer Harry M. Tatelman plundered the Universal Studios' stock footage archives for all of the exciting action footage from Hiller's "Tobruk" and seamlessly incorporated it into "Raid on Rommel." I would even argue that the action footage fares better here than in Hiller's "Tobruk." "Tobruk" was a "Guns of Navarone" clone with Rock Hudson as a Canadian and George Peppard as a German Jew who fought against the Nazis. Mind you, recycling footage in Hollywood is an age-old, time-honored practice. For example, every low-budget caveman or lost continent movie that came out of Hollywood in the 1950s exploited footage from "One Million B.C." In "Raid on Rommel," Burton is cast as Captain Alex Foster. British Intelligence riddles a Nazi half-track with machine gun fire and Foster climbs into it and drives off into the desert seemingly oblivious as to his destination. Later, a Nazi convoy ferrying sick P.O.W.s discovers Foster and picks him up. Initially, Major Hugh Tarkington (Clinton Greyn of "Robbery") knows that Foster isn't suffering from heat exhaustion, but he warns him that he wants to know his orders. Foster reveals his mission to Tarkington, only to learn that he has stumbled onto the wrong convoy. Instead of seasoned commandos at his disposal, he has the sick and the injured. Boy, is Foster upset and Tarkington isn't inclined to help him. Eventually, Tarkington changes his mind.Meanwhile, Foster manages to make something of the men at his disposal thanks largely to Sgt. Maj. Allan MacKenzie (John Colios of "Scorpio") and the British overpower their Nazi captors and disguise themselves as the enemy. Talk about improvising! On their way to Tobruk, Foster and MacKenzie give their men a boot camp in firing mortars and rappelling down ropes by slinging them to the sides of the personnel carriers. Along the way, they pick up a civilian and a beautiful woman and use them as a part of their masquerade. Our valiant heroes enter Tobruk, meet Rommel at his headquarters where Foster learns the whereabouts of a fuel depot, and then they blow everything to hell and gone. The scene at Rommel's headquarters is especially neat because Tarkington gets into a polite argument with a cultured Rommel about collecting postage stamps, thereby giving Foster—disguised as a Nazi officer—time to study secret German maps.No, "Raid on Rommel" is not the most historically accurate World War II film by any stretch of the imagination. However, few films produced about historical events are faithful to history. If you see a movie to get the facts straight, you're a misguided soul. Hollywood doesn't specialize in history lessons; movie makers want to entertain us first and then second strive for accuracy. During the last half of the 20th century, all World War II movies contained historically inaccurate equipment. American 'Cold War' army tanks usually masqueraded as Nazi Tiger Tanks and vintage Navy propeller driven fighters doubled for Japanese Zeroes. As far as that goes, most filmmakers ignored the fact that Nazis spoke German and Hitler's madmen uttered their lines with obvious ersatz accents. These problems became conventions largely because American audiences couldn't speak the foreign dialects and subtitles were confined to foreign art films. "Raid on Rommel" contains one of the most obvious conventions of World War II movies that "Catch-22" changed. During one scene, an Allied P-40 Tomahawk fighter attacks the Nazi convoy that Foster has joined. The enemy manages to hit the fighter and it streaks off, pouring smoke, and crashes behind a sand dune with a fireball explosion rolling heavenward to mark its demise. Of course, the producers no more than the owner of that vintage plane were about to destroy it for this inconsequential movie. In "Catch-22," you actually get to see a plane crash nose first into the side of mountain! Meanwhile, the significance of "Raid on Rommel" is undoubtedly lost on today's audience. In 1951, Hathaway helmed an ahead-of-its-time World War II biography "The Desert Fox" and portrayed Rommel (James Mason) in sympathetic terms. In fact, Hathaway's portrait of Rommel proved too sympathetic and most film critics scourged Twentieth Century Fox for this depiction. A couple of years later to set the record straight, Mason reprised his role as Rommel in "The Desert Rats" and he was not accorded the sympathy that outraged critics in the Hathaway gem. Read the major reviews of "The Desert Fox" in Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times and you will see for yourself that Hathaway stirred up controversy.Yes, "Raid on Rommel" is a potboiler of sorts, probably memorable to World War II fans more for Hathaway's brief but sympathetic Rommel scene and for—according to one Burton biographer—Burton's sober performance. He didn't drink a drop while he was acting, but then crusty old Henry Hathaway, who never gave any actor a break, probably kept his eye on the Welshman. The performances are standard and one of the most respected Bavarian actors who specialized in playing German officers—Wolfgang Preiss—plays Field Marshal Rommel.