A Comparison of the war movies "Tobruk" and "Raid on Rommel"

Neither Arthur Hiller’s “Tobruk” (1967), starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard, nor Henry Hathaway’s “Raid on Rommel” (1971), with Richard Burton, qualify as classic Hollywood war movies. Nevertheless, “Tobruk” (*** OUT OF ****) and “Raid on Rommel” (*** OUT OF ****) rank in the upper middle third of all W.W.II tough-guy actioneers. Each film depicts a desperate Allied commando strike against the Nazi-held, Mediterranean port of Tobruk in 1942. These two war movies have an interesting but not unusual relationship. Producer Harry Tatelman dug the “Tobruk” action footage out of the Universal Studios film vault and integrated it into “Raid on Rommel.” The use of stock footage is not unheard of, and film studios have relied on it to cut costs. The difference with “Raid on Rommel” is it relies almost entirely on “Tobruk” for its action scenes, so much so that certain characters had to match the apparel of their “Tobruk” counterparts. Unlike the more commercially successful “Tobruk,” “Raid on Rommel” suffered the fate of its title character. Six months after its theatrical debut, “Raid on Rommel” showed up on television.

“Tobruk” and “Raid on Rommel” share more than the same action footage. The plots are practically identical. As the more ambitious of the two, “Tobruk” sets higher sights for itself. Sadly, the pretentious commentary about Judaism and violence detracts from the film’s fireball momentum. Indeed, Leo Gordon’s “Tobruk” script weaves messages skillfully into the dialogue, but the characters spend more time snarling than shooting. Hiller and Gordon pile on the subplots as if they were sandbags. Their strategy is shrewd but futile. The filmmakers struggle to avoid telling a predictable story by introducing something new about every 20 minutes. Ultimately, Hiller and Gordon fail to exploit the squabbles among the heroes because the storyline brings in some new danger that sidetracks the drama. “Tobruk” lacks a villain, too, a terrible flaw for any action movie. Action pictures are measured by the villain’s audacity. Challenging villains compel the hero to scale greater heights to triumph over evil. Rock Hudson impersonates an inconsistently written hero. One minute he rejects heroics, and then the next minute he’s leading the fight!

In “Tobruk,” Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard of “The A-Team”) heads an elite band of German Jews fighting for the British. They rescue Major Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) from a French prison and fly the uncooperative Craig from Algiers to Libya. Craig meets old school British Colonel Harker. According to Harker, his commandos have eight days to link up with British naval assault troops to blast Rommel’s fuel bunkers in Tobruk. Before the commandos can rendezvous with the navy, Harker’s men have to spike the harbor guns. “Your primary responsibility,” Colonel Harker (Nigel Green) briefs Craig in “Tobruk,” “is to route our convoy through 800 miles of the worse desert that the Sahara has to offer to the back door of Tobruk.” Disguised as German Africa Korps troops, Bergman’s German Jews escort Colonel Harker’s men, posing as British P.O.W.s, into the port city. Once he hears the plan, Craig grimaces: “It’s suicide.” “It’s orders,” Harker snaps. Moreover, Harker informs Craig that the major’s knowledge of the terrain is the key to the success of the mission.

Commandeered against his wishes to participate in this suicidal mission, Craig shrugs and espouses an anti-heroic posture, “My mother didn’t raise any heroes, colonel.” Violence, bloodshed, explosions, and treachery pave the road to “Tobruk” with considerable excitement. Colonel Harker doesn’t trust Bergman and his German Jews. Six years in Palestine gave Harker a lifelong suspicion of the Jews. The salty colonel represents the old school of the stiff upper lip. Harker irritates Major Craig when Craig charges that the mission is “impossible.” The Gordon script huddles these unhappy characters and tests their mettle in several tight spots. Unfortunately, these episodes serve more to pad out the action than propel it forward.

Rock Hudson’s Major Craig sloughs off his anti-hero attitude not long after he makes his pledge. He helps shoot down an Allied fighter that mistakes the German convoy with the real thing. Craig guides the British through a dangerous minefield, and commandeers a tank with a dummy grenade. As the sacrificial Jew, George Peppard’s sardonic Bergman wears the doomed look of Siegfried. If “Tobruk” were filmed today, Peppard’s smoking would epitomize his brazen attitude about death and risk taking. Sadly, Peppard’s death scene lacks luster; he dies far too easily. Such is not the case with Harker. After surrendering to the Germans, the colonel discovers the identity of a traitor and shoots him. Naturally, the German execute Harker on the spot. Harker’s death scene bursts with old school gallantry.

As a shoot’em up war epic, “Tobruk” more than makes the grade. Director Arthur Hiller is better known for his comedy movies, but he manages to keep the action moving despite the loquacious interludes about violence and Judaism. Several incidents that occur on the way to Tobruk are fodder. The problem here is that only Colonel Harker’s schedule keeps them moving, a flimsy excuse for motivation. The climatic battle on the cliff above the beach near the coastal gun emplacements is first-class war stuff. Veteran movie director Joseph Kane staged these sequences, and they crackle with excitement. Finally, “Tobruk” is more ambitious, but the film’s pretentiousness interferes. The producers assembled too much plot for “Tobruk” and lost sight of the basic drama.

The people who made “Raid on Rommel” contented themselves with less plot and created situations of greater dramatic value. The more satisfying of the two movies, “Raid on Rommel” avoids sermons about Judaism. Every good war movie should deal with the theme of war and its impact on morality, but not to the extent that “Tobruk” spews the familiar cliches. Far more scaled down, “Raid” succeeds because veteran director Henry Hathaway knew how to convert a routine commando mission into an exciting, old-fashioned yarn with heroes and villains.

“Raid on Rommel” opens at dawn in the deserts of Libya. English troops riddle a British half-track with a machine gun. Captain Alec Foster (Richard Burton) disguises himself as a corporal. Watching Richard Burton scowl and snarl is half of the fun of “Raid on Rommel.” Foster watches while the medical staff loads the pale corpses of two British soldiers into the half-track. Foster climbs in and drives off into the desert.

Meanwhile, a German plane lands at a Nazi camp in the desert, and Captain Heinz Schroeder (Karl-Otto Alberty of "Kelly's Heroes") receives orders to evacuate to Tobruk. An incredulous Major Tarkington (Clinton Greyn), the medical officer, complains that moving wounded prisoners into an active war zone violates the Geneva Convention. Schroeder dismisses the objection. The Germans now occupy the port city, and Schroeder assures him that Tobruk is safe. Afterward, Schroeder deals with the obstreperous mistress of an Italian general, Vivi (Danielle DeMetz). She hates Schroeder, the Nazis, and the English, too. She has few romantic notions about men since her Italian general abandoned her. Although she appears distinctly out of place, director Henry Hathaway manages to integrate Vivi into the action in a useful way unlike the expendable civilian spies in “Tobruk.”

The Germans spot Foster’s half-track veering erratically through the desert. Foster is passed out on the steering wheel when the Germans capture him. Schroeder’s men drag him out of the half-track, and dump him unceremoniously in the sand. Foster acts as if he were unconscious. Tarkington plays along with Foster’s sham. He diagnoses him as suffering from shock and exposure. Later, Foster is furious when he learns that the Fifth Commandos have been afflicted with dysentery and shipped off to a concentration camp. The Fifth Commandos were the guys who he was supposed to lead. The plan called from them to take over the convoy before it reached Tobruk.
Reluctantly, he enlists the aid of the few remaining commandos and Tarkington’s hospital unit to spike the coastal guns at Tobruk. On the road to Tobruk, Foster and Sgt.Maj. Allen MacKenzie (John Colicos) whip these green troops into shape. They force them to jog alongside the transports, rappel off the sides of the trucks, and teach them how to use machine guns, mortars, and a flamethrower. Richard Burton’s presence bolsters this standard issue war movie. He looks cool in a German uniform, and his escapade in the tank at the fuel bunker is memorable.

As Nazi Captain Heinz Schroeder, Karl-Otto Alberty qualifies as the villain. He rubs everybody the wrong way. He takes particular delight at infuriating Vivi. He thrives on war and observes that desert warfare is pure warfare. No women, children, or civilians clutter things up, just soldiers fighting soldiers. Major Tarkington shakes his head in revulsion. He shares none of Schroeder’s sentiments about the glory of war. Finally, Schroeder confirms his villainy when he shoots a Quaker corpsman in the back as the man is nursing Foster’s wounds. Foster empties his pistol into Schroeder. Later, Tarkington crosses swords with Foster on similar incidents. They argue about warfare and its brute nature. Ironically, “Raid on Rommel” is the better of the two films because the filmmakers tell a better story. Director Henry Hathaway of “True Grit” fame streamlined everything in “Raid on Rommel” so that it appeared a part of the plot. No self-respecting W.W. II cinemaphile should deprive himself of the pleasure of watching these two movies. Happily, “Tobruk” and “Raid” are enjoying a second lease on video life.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RAID ON ROMMEL'' (1971)

Admittedly, Henry Hathaway's "Raid on Rommel" (**1/2 out of ****) isn't the masterpiece that Brian G. 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. Veteran television writer Richard M. Bluel serves up a predictable but entertaining screenplay 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 neither Oscars nor 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 "Ride to the Hangman's Tree" editor Gene Palmer seamlessly incorporated it into "Raid on Rommel." I would even argue that the action footage fares better in "Raid on Rommel" 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 fighting 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.

FILM REVIEW OF ''WHERE EAGLES DARE''

Clint Eastwood probably killed more of Adolf Hitler's German soldiers in director Brian G. Hutton's "Where Eagles Dare" (**** out of ****) than he did western outlaws as either Sergio Leone's Man with No Name in the "Dollars" trilogy or criminals as "Dirty Harry" in his five Warner Brothers crime movies. Bestselling British author Alistair MacLean penned the splendid screenplay that he later converted into a much tamer novel about a team of elite British M.I. 6 secret agents that parachute into Germany to rescue one of the top-ranking officers with a mother lode of knowledge about the June 6th Normandy landings. This MGM blockbuster that runs 158 minutes is probably the greatest action-adventure movie with a World War II setting ever produced. We're talking wall-to-wall gunfire with more surprises and complications than most movies ever attempt. Richard Burton and Eastwood as in top form and they get considerable help and guidance from busty Ingrid Pitt and Mary Ure as undercover female agents. "Where Eagles Dare" is also notable for its percussive orchestral soundtrack by composer Rod Goodwin, who carved a niche for himself in World War II movie soundtracks with "633 Squadron," "Force 10 from Navarone," "Operation Crossbow," and "The Battle of Britain." Some war movies take an anti-war stance, but neither Hutton nor MacLean had higher ideals on their collective minds when they made this war-as-an-adventure epic. If you are a World War II movie buff and you haven't seen "Where Eagles Dare," then you need to get yourself a copy of this memorable massacre.

Admiral Rolland (Michael Hordern of "Royal Flash") sends a group of British commandos on a suicidal mission to rescue U.S.A.F.F. General George Carnaby, (Robert Beatty of "2001: A Space Odyssey") one of the overall coordinators of planning for the second front who is imprisoned in an impregnable mountain fortress called the Schloss Adler, a.k.a 'the Castle of the Eagles.' As it turns out, the Schloss Adler is the headquarters for the German Secret Service in Southern Bavaria. Colonel Wyatt Turner, DSO MC (Patrick Wymark of "The League of Gentlemen") informs them that the castle is named appropriately "because only an eagle can get to it." Apparently, on a night flight to Crete, Carnaby's British Mosquito was shot down by a wandering Luftwaffe Messerschmitt and the Mosquito crashed in near the town of Werfen. Major Jonathan Smith (Richard Burton of "Raid on Rommel"), Lieutenant Morris Schaffer (Clint Eastwood of "Kelly's Heroes"), Captain James Christiansen (Donald Houston of "633 Squadron"), Sergeant Harrod (Brook Williams of "The Wild Geese"), Captain Philip Thomas (William Squire of "Alexander the Great"), Sergeant Jock MacPherson (Neil McCarthy of "Zulu"), and Edward Berkeley (Peter Barkworth of "Seven Keys") are to parachute into Germany, enter the castle and snatch Carnaby.

One of the sergeants suggests at the briefing that the R.A.F. fill a bomb-laden plane and crash it into the mountain fortress. Rolland reminds him that killing an American general might anger General Eisenhower. No sooner have our heroes bailed out than one of them, the radio operator, is found dead in the snow with a broken neck. The Gestapo raids a tavern in Werfen and arrests the rest and takes them separately for questioning. Smith and Schaffer are hauled away together, but they manage to escape after their car crashes. Smith and Schaffer then climb atop the cable car that ascends to the Schloss Adler. Simultaneous, one of their undercover agents, Mary Ure, is being escorted by a suave but sadistic Gestapo officer in the cable car to work in the castle.

Once our heroes have gotten into the castle, Smith interrupts a meeting between high ranking German officers and General Carnaby. Smith proves beyond a doubt to SS-Standartenführer Kramer (Anton Diffring of "Heroes of the Telemark") and Gen. Rosemeyer (Ferdy Mayne of "The Fearless Vampire Killers") that he is a double-agent working for the Nazis as well as the British with a night-time call to another high-ranking German general.

Eventually, when it comes time to break out of the castle, Smith relies on Schaffer who plasters the place with trip-wire explosives. Once the Nazis realize what is going on, all hell breaks loose. "Where Eagles Dare" the movie surpasses MacLean's own novel; he wrote the screenplay and he provides Richard Burton with some of the greatest lines that you'll ever hear in the World War II movie. Indeed, "Where Eagles Dare" is the best World War II thriller that Burton and Eastwood ever made, with Burton making more W.W. II thrillers than Eastwood. The rest of the cast is first-rate and composer Rod Goodwin of "633 Squadron" provides a memorable score that ramps up the action and intrigue. At 158 minutes, "Where Eagles Dare" never lets up on either action or excitement. The surprises that crop up in the narrative match the sizzling action sequences. Clearly, this is Brian Hutton's most memorable film, far better than the action comedy romp that he went on to direct "Kelly's Heroes" with Clint Eastwood after "Where Eagles Dare" wrapped. For the record, the propeller driven plane that appears during the opening credits is vintage Nazi plane. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the fighter planes that Smith and Schaffer blow up in the last major shoot out sequence.

Hollywood has yet to equal "Where Eagles Dare."