Raid on Rommel * (1971, Richard Burton, John Colicos, Clinton Greyn, Wolfgang Preiss) – Classic Movie Review 6446

‘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 the balance.’

Richard Burton stars as British officer Captain Alex Foster in director Henry Hathaway’s cheap-looking, basic, and uninspired 1971 World War Two action movie, originally planned as a TV movie and soon screened there after its cinema flop.

It was quickly filmed in a little more than three weeks in July 1970 and padded out with nearly all of its action scenes taken from Tobruk (1967) with its Oscar-nominated special effects sequences. Burton even had his hair dyed so he could match long shots of George Peppard from Tobruk.

Burton plays German-speaking British Intelligence officer Foster who leads a ragtag assortment of former British prisoners of war in German uniforms in a secret sabotage attack on German-captured Tobruk in 1943 Libya.

It was filmed in Mexico and Arizona locations for that authentic North African atmosphere, and directed at a plod by an unengaged-seeming Hathaway.

So the raid on Tobruk (1967) produced much insert filming, but it does not seem to help much. Burton looks pretty fed up.

Also in the cast are John Colicos, Clinton Greyn, Wolfgang Preiss as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Danielle De Metz, Karl-Otto Alberty, Christopher Cary, John Orchard, Brook Williams, Greg Mullavey (with two roles, as a private in the British Fifth Commando unit and as a German officer at Rommel’s field HQ near the fuel depot), Ben Wright, Chris Anders and Michael Sevareid.

It is written by Richard M Bluel, shot in Technicolor by Earl Rath, produced by Harry Tatelman, scored by Hal Mooney, and designed by Harry Bumstead and Alexander Golitzen.

Hathaway directed another film featuring Erwin Rommel, The Desert Fox (1951), with Jason Mason as Rommel, who played him again in The Desert Rats (1953), which also starred Burton.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6446

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