Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fair World War II Action/Adventure Film, April 11, 2001
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.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I Can Not Believe that Henry Hathaway Directed this Movie, May 24, 2001
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.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Desert Version of Where Eagles Dare, July 17, 2004
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.
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