La escoria del desierto

Well-made War adventure in which an officer (Michael Caine) is assigned by superiors (Nigel Green, Harry Andrews) leading an unit of ex-convicts on a dangerous mission in WWII North Africa. Michael Caine reluctantly has joined the ranks of the misfit bunch. They must execute an impossible assignment ,as bombing attack on German fuel supply depots. As a British tough Army officer to command a group of hardened ex-con, as murderers, thieves and a gay couple. To add intrigue a German nurse female (Vivian Pickles) is kidnapped and after that they are double-crossed.

This exciting war/adventure about a misfit band of crooks who are led by Michael Caine on a daring mission whose objective results to be destruction of the Rommel's indispensable fuel depots, it is packed with noisy action, suspense, thrills and is quite entertaining. Runtime film is adequate, ninety minutes and some but isn't boring and gets lots of amusement for the fast-movement. From the beginning until the ending , the action movie is continuous. Interesting screenplay by Colin and Bragg based on an original story by George Marton. This is one of the best of several movies about commandos on suicidal missions from beyond behind enemy lines. The film gets a certain likeness along the lines of ¨Tobruk¨, ¨Kelly's heroes¨ , ¨Where eagles dare ¨ and especially in the wake of ¨Dirty dozen¨ and group of films that were made regarding to warlike adventures during the 1960-1970 years about special forces in dangerous missions . However, the picture obtained limited success at the box office. Michael Caine is top notch as good and unwilling officer ; rough and gruff Nigel Davenport is nice as leader of the motley group. Michael Legrand musical score is gorgeous and with the famous song 'Lili Marlene' at the initiation and the end . Cinematographer Edward Scaife gets a glimmer and glittering photography filmed on location in Spain and at Shepperton Studios , Middlesex, England. The motion picture is correctly produced by Harry Saltzman, James Bond movies producer, and well directed by Andre De Toth. Rating : good film, relentless plot twists and a warlike action keep you breathless.

Tough, macho Nigel Davenport matches wits with firm English captain Michael Caine as they team up to kick axis butt in this two-fisted war movie that will keep you glued to the screen.

The harshness of the unforgiving desert and the danger of combat is expertly presented by director Andre de Toth. The storyline is intelligent and the characters believable whereas the battle scenes are excellent as well as a scene in a desert windstorm that is my favorite. Nigel Davenport is an underrated actor and the tension between him and Michael Caine is nicely understated, which gives it more power. One of the top war movies from its era.

A virtually unknown British masterpiece from the 60's.

Its cynical and bleak portrayal of men in war is only matched by its lack of notoriety which is a shame considering how powerful the films message is. Admittedly Caine is a little wooden as the straight laced British Officer, but it is the much less known Nigel Davenport who steals the show as the hard bitten second in command. The films cynicism is the sum of it's ending which is suitably negative but still unsuspected. With all the flag waving war films out there its good to see the odd one which suggests the end never justifies the means.

Play Dirty (1969)

You almost have to see this anarchic, nasty, selfish, brutal WWII movie as a comment on Vietnam, and on war. It's 1969. At first you think Michael Caine, for all his talent, is miscast, but the odd displacement of his character among a lot of very hardened, serious men is part of what works.

This is not like any WWII you've seen. It's an odd mixture of hardship, tedium, humor, and straight up masculine grit. It's set in the Sahara, so dunes and sand and dry nasty weather rules. There is a mission at hand, and these men have to be unorthodox and ruthless to succeed. But there are long stretches of just traveling and conquering the desert, of going day after day through storms and lack of storms. There is also fighting amongst the men, a somewhat horrifying (and unnecessary) attempted rape, some bloody carnage of natives, and of Germans, a long twenty minutes of Fitzcarraldo heroics with some cables, and so on.

But in the end, it really does capture something essential of war, including the nonsense of some of it, and the lack of rules, and the lack of personal safety that comes from chaos, and the difficulty of companionship and trust.

Prescient, dark slice of a desert war campaign -- a band of jaded misfits is sent on a critical dangerous mission -- that you will not be able to erase from memory. The tension De Toth creates in one scene of a booby-trapped way-station, with long patient shots and close ups of sweat beads, surpasses any but the most masterful of Hitchcock. Michael Caine's role as a reluctant oil executive tagged on to the mission is a study in ambivalent survival. The characters are some you'd never expect.

De Toth is among the most interesting directors no one has ever heard of. His distaste for the studio system has meant that many of his movies have been overlooked. His style of storytelling is terse and sparse, almost unfinished, leaving the viewers to fill in their own ideas. Probably unsatisfying to some, but fascinating in his contrast to so many over-explaining movie makers.

Syriana owes much to the tenor of this story. It is the flip side of Band of Brothers. A story that today holds more lessons than ever.