Os Comandos Atacam Rommel

The history is wrong. The props are inaccurate. The story is over the top derring do nonsense. It was the presence of Richard Burton that drew me to this turkey. Alas, it must have been his worst role. I fail to see how any film maker can be so careless with his subject and so contemptuous of his audience. The Germans did not use flying boats and certainly not in the desert. The Wehrmacht did not use the type of campaign ribbon shown on the German uniforms. There are no puffy white clouds over the Libyan desert. Edward R. Murrow's CBS broadcasts could not have been heard in Africa. And on and on and on. Nor have we even approached the absurd plot, complete with an Italian bimbo and a philatelic Erwin Rommel. Or the very chintzy special effects. Nope. My one line summary says it all. A really bad movie!

This afternoon the BBC aired once again this abominable film about a British commando unit set out to destroy a German petrol dump in order to prevent the Germans from using their tanks. As far as I am concerned everything that could be wrong about this movie is wrong: the Germans are portrayed as silly cartoon-like figures who are only interested in war and who believe everything Hitler says. The British protagonists are all civilized people who took on the battle reluctantly and are heroes simply because they're British. This film is also rather comical: at one point one of the British special service man is seen in an encounter with the German general Rommel. Every now and again this British soldier tries to show that he speaks German fluently. Well, he doesn't. You don't have to be German (and I am not) to see that these so called highly trained commandos wouldn't last an hour if they were dropped as secret agents in Nazi-Germany. If this film was shot in the years between 1940-1945, I could have understand. But in 1971?

British forces must destroy gun emplacements in Tobruk. Richard Burton once again gives n outstanding performance as Alex Foster who must destroy the German guns. This movie is a mixture of the guns of Naverone and battle of the bulge as you have American tanks m41 walker bulldogs and m48 Patton as German Panzers ( all of which is footage lifted from Tobruk ) similar to the bulge film. You have Burton exactly copying the actions of Peppard to fit the stock footage of Tobruk into the action scenes of this film. However this is what lets the film down as it doesn't use any new footage as far as battle scenes are concerned it is like watching Tobruk again but just with different actors. Still worth a watch as it is exciting and well acted

Looking at the criticisms of poor Richard Burton for taking a role in Raid on Rommel makes me want to put a word in for him. Acting was a craft as well as an art to him, it's how he made his living. I'm sure he got a good pay day out of Raid on Rommel. I think he also wanted to try the action genre as well. He made a much better choice with Where Eagles Dare though.

It's a poorly conceived story from start to finish. Someone in Allied Headquarters in London had the brilliant idea of freeing a bunch of captive commandos in North Africa and send them on a mission to Tobruk to spike some harbor guns. Same idea as in Guns of Navarone. So Burton gets the job.

But upon executing the escape he discovers he has freed a bunch of medical personnel and hardly enough commandos. Never mind he uses what he has.

His mission is to blow up those guns, but on discovering a fuel depot for Rommel he makes a little side trip to blow it up. Hello, but I think he was compromising the mission he was sent on. Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to do the job you're assigned to and then when you got out you tell headquarters and they do another mission? That makes more sense to me.

The fuel depot sequences and the finale with the guns at Tobruk harbor are taken from the Rock Hudson film a few years earlier. Burton gives a rather pedestrian performance as does the rest of the cast.

By the way as if our heroes didn't have enough on their hands they're also transporting the mistress of an Italian general. That man wasn't going to sacrifice any of the comforts of the homefront. They keep her all doped up and at one point, one of the commandos decides to sacrifice for king and country and give his all for the mission.

Just who was the dope who thought her up?

I watched this movie with my dad when I was a kid. I just felt nostalgic, and bought a copy of this movie off Amazon.com. After watching it, I realized that most of the battle scenes were actually from the 1960's Rock Hudson Film "Tobruk". The plot was nearly identical, but "Tobruk" is the better of the 2 to see. Still if you are a fan of Richard Burton, you can't go wrong with this version. Another plus, it is available on DVD, while "Tobruk" can only be found on used VHS. Burton was much better in "Where Eagles Dare" but carries this movie anyhow. Lots of familiar faces can been found in this movie if you are a fan of WW2 movies. The German nemesis in this one can also be found as the German tank commander in "Kelly's Heroes"