La battaglia di El Alamein

The Battle for El Alamein is a cut above the other Italian WWII movies I've seen. It does have it's flaws though. Poor editing - as our heroic Italian warriors are being overrun by the Brits, everyone is getting ready to die. One guy tenderly caresses a photo of his son and laments that his son will never get to see his father. BOOM BOOM BOOM of explosions and cut to Montgomery casually leaning on on an armored personnel carrier. Only to come back later and find out that they weren't wiped out. What Happened?! There are other annoying cuts but that was the worst.

The APCs are indeed M113s but the British did have something called the universal carrier which looks like an open top, cut down version of a 113. I'm willing to give that a pass.

At one point we are in the British camp and they have real Sherman tanks, long barreled ones but they are Shermans. The Germans have M48s, I think they are. Both sides are painted tan. But in the final battle we have a line of M48s lined up on the ridge. It wasn't until the Italians said they were being attacked that I realized these were supposed to be British tanks. Most confusing.

At any rate, this movie is a cut above the usual Italian war movie and is good enough for a watch. It's something different in that the roles are reversed and the Italians are the heroes and good soldiers and the allies are the faceless mob getting mowed down by the ton. Not that that is a good thing but it's a change of pace.

OK I know, it's a cheesy flick with a low budget, but I really enjoyed it. The Italian tanks coming into the battle was awesome! I always play this game called Panzer General and my favorite moves are trying to amass Italian troops against the Allies just to test my ability. I'm glad the Italians were run by very VERY incompetent Officers because they could have been a real asset (more so) to the Germans. This is the story of an elite Italian Infantry unit (the Bersaglieri). In all, six of the 12 total Bersaglieri regiments fought in North Africa, compiling an excellent combat record. More than once, Bersaglieri units fought to the last man to hold a position while German units ran away. This movie tells of one of those engagements, and the first time I saw it and what armament they had to face a dozen tanks, I was really entertained and so will you! Try to get a decent print though because I was so desperate to see this one time that I bought it on tape and it was horrible, the DVD was really bad but at least it was watchable. It's the only one of it's kind that I've seen although I loved movies like Stalingrad (the BW version) that showed some of the Romanian army's in action. Interesting for war film buffs and recommended.

From the British bulletin:

The opposite resistance from the "Divisione Paracadutisti Folgore" is indeed admirable. The rests of the Italian division Folgore have resisted beyond every limit of the human possibilities.

6450 paratroops, at the end of the battle only 340 survived. Some tanks on this movie looks like after war tanks. 25,000 Germans and Italians had been killed or wounded in the battle and 13,000 Allied troops in the Eighth Army. The glorious Division was destroyed during the 2nd El Alamein Battle. During this episode the V an VI Semoventi 75/18 Groups, and the DI Semoventi 90/53 Group operated under the 'Ariete' Division Command.

This isn't a bad WWII adventure, in fact a fair imitation of the big-budget Hollywood films from that vintage; the international cast is second-rate but both Michael Rennie and Robert Hossein cut a serviceable figure as General Montgomery and Field Marshall Rommel respectively - and there's a good performance by Enrico Mario Salerno as an Italian officer of the Bersaglieri.

The film deals with Rommel's famous North African campaign, in which the Nazis were 'aided' by the Italian forces (more precisely, the latter served as a shield to the former, with their largely disheveled armies being deemed disposable). Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, the Fascists are the heroes here (though Frederick Stafford is portrayed as a martinet) while the Allies, i.e. the British, are the villains (at one point, they're even shown massacring a group of unarmed Germans in cold blood) - but, at least, there's one sympathetic member in George Hilton; the Germans stand somewhere in the middle: Rommel is treated as a level-headed strategist who, however, is extremely critical of the Fuehrer's unrealistic orders (and, even if the film is clearly set in 1942, is already seen to be a willing participant in what eventually became the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler). The cast also includes Gerard Herter (who, memorably, had been the aristocratic sharpshooter and Lee Van Cleef's alter-ego in THE BIG GUNDOWN [1966]) as a German officer who doesn't see eye to eye with Rommel.

The action is frequent and well-handled, and there's even a healthy dose of comedy - at least among the Italian lines (which may well have been lost in the English translation!); besides, Carlo Rustichelli's upbeat score is a major asset...and surprisingly - but satisfactorily - the film provides a downbeat ending! I'll be following this with two other Italian war films - Enzo G. Castellari's EAGLES OVER London (1969), also with Stafford, and Sergio Martino's CASABLANCA EXPRESS (1989)...

Oh dear an Italian war film . I had visions that I was going to be watching either a remake of THE DIRTY DOZEN or 90 minutes of hunky Mediterrians waving a white flag shouting " We surrender " in 97 different languages . Sorry if I'm playing up to either cinematic or historical stereotypes but unlike Mussolini I didn't have high hopes . Michael Rennie as Monty ? Well I doubt if this would be getting broadcast on The History Channel . Or indeed anywhere else in Britain

The film did defeat my prejudices , but only in the first half , and it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory and before the film reached its end titles the victory the film had over me and turned in to a defeat on the scale of Stalingrad . It is undoubtedly intriguing watching a war film from the other side . ALAMEIN isn't unforgettable human cinema in the way DAS BOOT was but does portray all sides in the conflict as being people who have families at home and it's this that is important to the characters rather than the wider politics of the conflict . Okay maybe the " War is hell " statements are overdone but it's possibly in keeping with the Italian mindset during this era . The Italians were badly equipped with obsolete equipment , very badly led and Italy would traditionally through the last couple of centuries side with the British and French often against Germany so Mussolini's pact with Nazi Germany despite being logical from a political point of view goes against the historical grain . Add to this the fact political and military leaders were quickly promoted due only to their loyalty to the Italian Fascist party and you can see why the average Italian conscript might not be too happy getting killed fighting against a democracy , especially if he knows he's probably going to be better fed in an allied POW camp than in his own army . As a battle hardened NCO realises his section is going to be led by a glory seeking officer we have all the makings of a good melodrama

The film then proceeds to blow it by going out of its way to ruin the early potential . Little things such as the anachronistic Italian helmets with their 1960s camouflage patterns you can overlook if the bigger picture is impressive but it's not . The story soon loses its early focus and instead jumps from one half baked thread to another . Rommel starts getting involved in a plot that would lead to the July 1944 bomb plot . Common myth but Rommel had nothing to do with that . British equipment includes 1960s era American APCs and 1950s era tanks and march in to battle playing bagpipes which sound nothing like bagpipes . It's interesting that the film in its early stages portrays all sides as being intelligent but then in the latter stages British tank crews don't notice Italian soldiers as they nonchalantly wander around the battlefield sticking bundles of dynamites on tanks . Tanks that conveniently have straps that you can attach bundles of dynamite to . The macho heroics jars in comparison with the first half of the film that does have an anti-war feeling to it and by this stage it has become a different and much inferior movie