Product Details

• Actors: James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, Jessica Tandy, Luther Adler, Everett Sloane
• Directors: Henry Hathaway
• Writers: Desmond Young, Nunnally Johnson
• Producers: Nunnally Johnson
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: May 20, 2003
• Run Time: 88 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008AOTO
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,452 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Desert Fox" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

What a difference a few years can make. The Desert Fox, released six years after the end of World War II, is a solemnly respectful tribute to Erwin Rommel, Germany's most celebrated military genius. James Mason's portrayal of this gallant warrior became a highlight of his career iconography. The film itself is oddly disjointed: a precredit commando raid to liquidate Rommel is followed by a flashback to the field-marshal's lightning successes commanding the Afrika Korps—-a compressed account via documentary footage and copious narration (spoken by Michael Rennie, who also dubs Desmond Young, the Rommel biographer and onetime British POW appearing briefly as himself). The dramatic core is Rommel's growing disenchantment with Hitler (Luther Adler), his involvement in the plot to assassinate der Führer, and his subsequent martyrdom. Mason's Rommel returned two years later for a flamboyant, mostly German-speaking cameo in The Desert Rats, a prequel focusing on the battle for Tobruk. --Richard T. Jameson

Product Description

Features include:

•MPAA Rating: NR
•Format: DVD
•Runtime: 88 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars English actor, James Mason, makes a great Rommel., July 23, 2000

By 

M. A. Treu (Bordentown, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Desert Fox [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Originally copyright by 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, in 1951, only six years after the end of World War Two, this black and white film gives a shallow overview of the last years of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: the Desert Fox.

Once you get past the opening rather stagey scenes, of British commandos raiding a German headquarters building in north Africa, hoping to kill the Desert Fox in his lair, the rest of the film is carried along guite well, by the great performance of James Mason, as Rommel. This performance is the only reason I rated this film as four stars, without Mason I would have been disapointed.

Other members of the cast do fine jobs too, notably Cedric Hardwicke and Leo G. Carroll. One can find good entertainment based on real events.

D-Day: the invasion of Normandy, is a highlight of this film. There are several minutes of what appears to be genuine newsreel footage of the storming of the beaches: the ships off shore, the guns, the planes, brave men falling. It's all very real at this point.

"The Desert Fox" was made in an era when the directors, producers, and the Hollywood Establishment in general, were less preachy, and less likely to distort the truth in order to promote a social agenda. That is a big plus for this film.

On the down side: the film starts off with several undisclosed advertisements for other videos, of like kind, by Fox. This is borderline dishonest, as consumers have paid for entertainment and expect it to be commercial free. At the very least, the ads should be disclosed, before anyone makes a purchaseing decision.

All in all, "The Desert Fox" is good entertainment and deserves a look.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tale of a great fox and many rats, August 5, 2005

By 

John Elsegood (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Desert Fox [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It is interesting how often the losing sides in great conflicts often throw-up great military leaders. Just as the Confederacy had Robert E Lee in the Civil War so too did the German Wehrmacht, in WWII, have the military genius of Erwin Rommel.

This 1951 classic has British actor James Mason in the lead, and flanked, by Cedric Hardwicke (Dr Karl Strolin, mayor of Stuttgart), Jessica Tandy (Frau Lucie Rommel), Leo G Carroll (Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt) who all give fine performances. Cameo appearances come from Rommel biographer Desmond Young, who plays himself, as a captured British officer in North Africa at the start of the film's action, and footage of US Generals, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton (waving at tank crews).

The film traces Rommel's growing disenchantment with Hitler (Luther Adler) and the encroachment of the Nazi police state on the life of its citizens - revealed in guarded conversations between Rommel and his friend Mayor Strolin, (the latter also giving a gestapo spy the slip) and Rommel and von Rundstedt.

This disillusionment is clearly seen in the two separate conversations between Rommel and Dr Strolin -the first in a hospital ward where Rommel is clearly more up-beat and later in Rommel's study, where the conversation is more strained and indeed aggressive between the two old friends.

The destruction of the Rommel family unit is a poignant moment as Rommel goes to his death (via self induced poison) to safeguard the lives of his wife and son. The Fuhrer honours the fallen hero of the Reich with a state funeral after he 'had succumbed to war injuries' -fulfilling his 'bargain' that if Rommel went quietly nothing would happen to his family.

The reason this dreadful scene came to fruition was that Rommel was implicated in the 1944 bomb plot (of 20 July) against Hitler but unlike some of the other conspirators, who ended up on meat hooks, the Fuhrer did not want the scandal of a trial involving the hero of the Afrika Korps.

Ironically Rommel, also narrowly escaped death in July 1944, just 3 days earlier than the attempt on the life of Hitler, when his staff car was attacked by a Canadian fighter pilot, leaving the Field Marshal injured and hospitalised.

The film is basically real to life although Manfred Rommel in the film is portrayed as a naive 15 year old unaware of the dreadful fate of his father as the Field Marshal exits the family home for the last time.

In reality, the son knew that his father was being driven to his pre-arranged doom by the two military emissaries acting under instructions from the Fuhrer.

This is a fine film made only six years after the end of WWII -and is a sympathetic documentation of the events surrounding the life and times of the famed Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel.

38 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DVD features a nice transfer of a great film, April 28, 2003

By 

Darren Harrison "DVD collector and reviewer" (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Desert Fox (DVD)

I recently saw an advance review copy of the DVD "The Desert Fox" and I was surprised at the nice quality of the transfer of what is an exceptional movie. Based on the exploits of the famed German general Erwin Rommel the DVD has a crisp clean transfer. Included on this disc is the original theatrical trailer which remarkably, considering it's age, is also reproduced here in relatively good condition.
Considering it's low price this addition to the Fox War Classics catalog is easy to recommend.