Customer Reviews

Raid on Rommel [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In 1966, Universal Studios made the film "Tobruk" starring Rock Hudson. Five years later, they made this film with Richard Burton which, for all practical purposes, is the same film. In fact, a fair amount of the action footage was lifted from "Tobruk." If you have never seen "Tobruk," you might enjoy this film; if you have seen "Tobruk," you will probably be disappointed. As far as I am aware, "Tobruk" has not been released on DVD, although I have seen it on VHS. Frankly, "Raid on Rommel" reminds me of an extended episode of the old "Rat Patrol" TV series that played in the late 1960s. It's not a terrible film, it's just not distinguished.

The Goodtimes DVD is somewhat surprisingly presented in widescreen format. Goodtimes has been inconsistent with their catalog of films that they have licensed from Universal. Some of their DVDs are presented widescreen, others are not. I did not expect this film to be presented widescreen, but I did expect the mono soundtrack and that's what you get here. There are no extras save for subtitles in English, French and Spanish and 18 chapter breaks. There are a few longer passages in German that could have used subtitles but, curiously, are not.

It is almost inconceivable that a director of the stature of Henry Hathaway even got involved with this project. THE DESERT FOX, CALL NORTHSIDE 777, TRUE GRIT, 13 RUE MADELEINE, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, NEVADA SMITH, THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS, GARDEN OF EVIL and HOW THE WEST WAS WON are just some of the great films directed by Henry Hathaway. This film hardly deserves to be listed with this director's complete body of work. Henry Hathaway had a history of creating great emotion and energy from the images he created for the screen. RAID ON ROMMEL stars Richard Burton. Basically it looks like Burton and the rest of the cast filmed their speaking parts separately. The rest of the film looks like it was made entirely from stock footage taken exclusively from TOBRUK which starred Rock Hudson a few years earlier. Ingeniously editing the new speaking scenes with the stock action footage from TOBRUK the producers ended up with RAID ON ROMMEL. The producers almost pulled it off unless you are one of the many people that saw TOBRUK because that footage was pretty impressive action filmmaking.

Yet another motion picture vehicle for Richard Burton to play commando and destroy the Nazi war effort in North Africa. Burton's character is very similar to the part he played in WHERE EAGLES DARE, and later reprised in THE WILD GEESE. Burton goes behind enemy lines to destroy Italian coastal artillery on the Libyan coast. The mission goes awry. Burton is forced to come up with an alternative plan that includes the destruction of the Afrika Korps fuel reserves using an ad hoc group of POWs.

The primary shortcoming with RAID ON ROMMEL is that about half of the aerial and special effects footage was lifted directly from 1966's TOBRUK more blatantly than scenes were ever repeated from TORA, TORA, TORA! As both TOBRUK and RAID ON ROMMEL are Universal Releases there were very few issues as far as the studio was concerned. I will have to give credit to director Henry Hathaway and the film editor for assembling this picture from two separate films. For the most part the 1971 film flows along with the original 1966 footage. The significant breaks in in continuity occur toward the latter part of the film where uniforms, weapons and action do not match the story that has already been established.

Comparing the two films, TOBRUK is a well made film with with a flimsy plot -- but the special effects are spectacular. RAID ON ROMMEL is a poor film with an okay storyline. The action scenes in RAID ON ROMMEL are great, but they belong to TOBRUK. In order to match some of the original German vehicle convoy scenes the film crew raided the Universal vehicle boneyard and fielded pretty much the same military surplus trucks and half tracks. For this I give them kudos. As an aside, you could still see some of these surplus vehicles at Universal Studios, California in the late 1980s.

In addition to Burton, John Calicos costars as one of the POWs-turned-commando. War film buffs will also recognize military film regulars Karl Otto Alberty (KELLY'S HEROES, WAR AND REMEMBERENCE) and the late Wolfgang Preiss (THE LONGEST DAY, ANZIO, BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS, THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL)as German officers.

Oh well. Whether or not you see this film as a remake of TOBRUK or 1969's PLAY DIRTY, it should probably make its way into your military film collection. By the way, the California desert scenes are breathtaking.

An explosive film

Richard Burton and Star Trek villain John Colicos play British intelligence officers who attack German desert defenses in this 1971 film. The best battle scenes are toward the end of the film when Burton's character sets the base aflame with his tanks and flame-throwers. It was exciting to see him a realistic action hero. There were no Stallone like scenes with him out fighting the enemy. He was more clever and deceptive in making the Nazi's believe he was one of them. They discovered that he wasn't the man he presented himself to be far too late. He led the Nazi's to think he was treating his soldiers for Typhoid fever.

John Colicos role was that of a supporting actor to Burton. It made me realize that he had a lot more talent than given credit for. I wish he had more dialogue with Burton other than taking orders and following the leader.

The world could not be without a movie with Richard Burton, Karl Otto Alberty and Wolfgang Priess as AFRIKA KORPS desert warriors! which was very nice to see indeed! Richard Burton as expected is always great as a nazi as is a British Commando, as is Alberty and Priess are classic Nazis and also always great as expected, this is perhaps the most classic and most viewed Desert war movie.....although it borrows heavily from TOBRUK, it still delivered the goods, one of the great features of this Desert War film was that some of the Desert scenes were filmed on Mexico's Baja California's Desert peninsula which resembles very close the North African desert scenery.

This has to be one of the worst films I've ever seen. Despite the fact that it stars one of my all-time favourite actors, Richard Burton. Then again, if you glance down Burton's credits, he's starred in his fair shair of duds.

The only good parts are what they stole from Tobruk.

This is a poor imitation of the movie Tobruk (1967).

I can't believe this one gets released on DVD, but we are still waiting for Tobruk.

Some other great war movies yet to be released on DVD
Red Ball Express (1952)
Destination Gobi (1953)
Hannibal Brooks (1969)
But the Brave (1965)
The Secret Invasion (1964)
The Bold and the Brave (1956)
Darby's Rangers (1958)
Dunkirk (1958)
Zeppelin (1971)
TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING (1977) Ok I snuck this one in but it's still good
The African Queen (1951)Oh, and a good release of this would be nice

Somewhere between 1964 and the 1975 release of "Jaws," Universal cut back on theatrical film production to concentrate on establishing their dominance in the lucrative TV series market. An occasional epic like "Airport" would keep their big-screen profile high, while low budget programmers were produced to run in theaters for a week and then turn up on network TV within a year. "Raid on Rommel" is an example of this type of project. Filmed at little expense, and using stock battle footage from the earlier "Tobruk," it is unusual only because of the casting of Richard Burton and the presence of Henry Hathaway behind the camera. Robert Stack was set to star, but he was given the heave-ho when Burton wanted in. Why did Burton want in? Was it the paycheck or did he see it as a lark? Whatever his motivation, "Raid on Rommel" premiered in theaters in early 1971, and was unspooling on NBC before the year was out. It has some value as a curiosity piece for Burton fans, but little else to recommend it.

Not even Richard Burton could save this careless eploitation effort. It isnt'even much by early 70s standards. Much better films came before and after. By today, it has utterly failed the test of time, looking corny and dated.

And it tells you everything you need to know to make you switch off even after a few seconds, in the opening title. It reads 'LIBYA-1943'.

In contrast to what the following exposition title tries to make you believe, in 1943, Rommel's African Adventure was long over. All the Axis' African ambitions were blown to bits, and most of the Afrika Korps along with them. Remaining Axis forces had long retreated to Tunisia, a third of a continent away. The British had re-captured Tobruk on 13 November 1942. So here's a film disregarding its historical setting so blatantly it doesn't even bother checking the simplest facts.

Now you maybe could forgive historical inaccuracies in a fictional film that is much rather concerned with, say, a powerful anti-war message. Did someone say 'Play Dirty'? This one isn't, though. It never lets you doubt for a second its motive is pure greed, despite - or especially through - some audio 'flashbacks', still images etc. inserted when some characters die. This completely perfunctory attempt at psychedelic stylings in the spirit of the times achieves nothing but letting the flick look even cornier. These effects are too few and far between, they are not executed deliberately enough to create any great impression; but most of all, the characterization is too haphazard and weak, so the viewer simply doesn't care.

Worse though: The script is none too crafty even by exploitation standards. The plot with the fictitious (and ridiculously quick-firing) coastal guns is an embarrassingly obvious 'Guns of Navarone' rip-off. Rommel, despite being portrayed by an actor who could in theory give James Mason a very swift run for his money, is made out as a gullible, stamp-collecting fool and rendered a laughing stock. The same goes for the German Hauptmann, a minor villain. Any child knows you can't have a great film if you fail to make the heroes' adversaries great. It's a comic exploitation effect, but since this film is not entirely meant to be a comedy, it completely ruins the atmosphere.

Final quibble: Props are especially bad and the most obvious sign of low production values. There is not a single German, or indeed German-looking vehicle in sight. It's a wonder they bothered painting the markings on. Mostly American products were used, some from decades later like the M47 tanks.

Admittedly, the same does go for much of 'Patton'. But that is simply a so much better film that you can forgive it much more easily. In fact, this common flaw is absolutely the only reason even to mention these two films in the same review.

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. 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.

The widescreen Universal Pictues DVD presentation of "Raid on Rommel" doesn't have a commentary track, but the picture is crisp and the audio is good.