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IMDbPro

Le 5ème commando

Original title: Raid on Rommel
  • 1971
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 39m
IMDb RATING
5.4/10
2.5K
YOUR RATING
Le 5ème commando (1971)
In 1942 Libya, a German-speaking British Intelligence officer uses former British POWs, some dressed in German uniforms, to fulfill a secret sabotage mission inside German-captured Tobruk.
Play trailer0:57
1 Video
48 Photos
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In 1942, in Libya, a German-speaking British intelligence officer uses former British POWs, some dressed in German uniforms, to fulfill a secret sabotage mission inside German-captured Tobru... Read allIn 1942, in Libya, a German-speaking British intelligence officer uses former British POWs, some dressed in German uniforms, to fulfill a secret sabotage mission inside German-captured Tobruk.In 1942, in Libya, a German-speaking British intelligence officer uses former British POWs, some dressed in German uniforms, to fulfill a secret sabotage mission inside German-captured Tobruk.

  • Director
    • Henry Hathaway
  • Writer
    • Richard M. Bluel
  • Stars
    • Richard Burton
    • John Colicos
    • Clinton Greyn
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.4/10
    2.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Henry Hathaway
    • Writer
      • Richard M. Bluel
    • Stars
      • Richard Burton
      • John Colicos
      • Clinton Greyn
    • 30User reviews
    • 15Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 0:57
    Trailer

    Photos48

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    Top cast24

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    Richard Burton
    Richard Burton
    • Foster
    John Colicos
    John Colicos
    • MacKenzie
    Clinton Greyn
    Clinton Greyn
    • Major Tarkington
    Wolfgang Preiss
    Wolfgang Preiss
    • Rommel
    Danielle De Metz
    Danielle De Metz
    • Vivi
    • (as Danielle de Metz)
    Karl-Otto Alberty
    Karl-Otto Alberty
    • Schroeder
    • (as Karl Otto Alberty)
    Christopher Cary
    Christopher Cary
    • Conscientious Objector
    John Orchard
    John Orchard
    • Garth
    Brook Williams
    • Reilly
    Greg Mullavey
    Greg Mullavey
    • Brown
    Ben Wright
    Ben Wright
    • Admiral
    Michael Sevareid
    • Wembley
    Chris Anders
    • Tank Sergeant
    Ron Berkeley
      Peter Hellman
      • Communications Officer
      • (uncredited)
      Erik Holland
      Erik Holland
      • Sentry at Checkpoint
      • (uncredited)
      Michael Kriss
      • Johnson
      • (uncredited)
      Mike Kulcsar
      • Bit
      • (uncredited)
      • Director
        • Henry Hathaway
      • Writer
        • Richard M. Bluel
      • All cast & crew
      • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

      User reviews30

      5.42.5K
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      Featured reviews

      5tfs-admon02

      Hathaway adapted to the modern times

      Richard Burton stars this film in which he is the British Captain Foster, who rescues some British doctors and some few soldiers from e convoy in which the Germans carried them to Tobruk. Captain Foster divide these British men so that some of them feign to be German and the others are the sick ones. So, leaving the German soldiers in the desert, they go to Tobruk, where they destroy the fuel deposits and then the canons so that the British Army can arrive at Tobruk port. Although the plot can sound nice and entertaining, Hathaway does not develop their characters (for example, the Italian prostitute is only decorative) and the Germans are very easy to be cheated. The director tries to adapt to the modern times, using many zooms and, perhaps, from the content point of view, in the character of Richard Burton, who is really an antihero: Captain Foster is a Maquiavellian man, who does not respect the Geneva conventions'rules, attacking a sanitary German convoy and using prisoners of war to get his aim. There two curiosities about this movie that I would like to remark: the first one is the use of war images from Tobruk by Arthur Hiller, which was also produced by Universal; the second one is that the filming location was in San Felipe, in Baja California Norte (Mexico) in spite of Africa. These facts show us that this film was B war movie in budget and in quality.
      2rps-2

      A really bad movie

      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!
      7Penfold-13

      Reasonable desert war movie

      There are a lot of bizarre chains of circumstance which set up the plot of this. People just happen to have talents and interests which assist the plot, others have very improbable reasons for being where they are, and so on.

      But if you can forget about the artificially convenient, this is a pretty good tale, pretty well told. A medical corps unit, and some of its patients, who start out as captives, end up, under the leadership of Richard Burton, being a commando team who play a vital part in the assault on Tobruk. Oh, and there's a girl in there somewhere.

      There are plenty of tense moments, adventures, incidents, and so on. People get shot, things get blown up, the Germans are uniformly stupid except for Rommel, the military genius.

      It's got all the ingredients (even if it did borrow some of the more spectacular explosions and so on from another movie), and the actors are as convincing as they can be given their improbable backgrounds.

      A perfectly enjoyable, inconsequential, undemanding movie which makes two hours or so pass pleasantly enough.
      4SgtSlaughter

      Rushed and Poorly Produced WWII Fare

      It's simply too bad that this movie was ever made. Okay, "Raid on Rommel" isn't the worst WII movie ever produced. Browse through some of my other reviews, and you'll soon learn that. The sad thing is, any middle-aged American man is liable to pick this one up off of the DVD rack at Suncoast like I did a few years ago and be shocked by how such a promising-looking movie turned into such a big letdown.

      Made in 1971, "Raid on Rommel" was originally planned as a made-for-TV special to make some more money off of the special effects sequences in "Tobruk", far too many of which were incorporated into this film. The far-fetched plot revolves around a British commando unit who have to sneak behind the German lines and blow up the shore batteries at Tobruk, allowing the British Navy to sail into the harbor unmolested and begin an attack. There's a lot more going to complicate matters, including the presence of a conscientous objector (Christopher Cary), an Italian prostitute (Danielle de Metz), Field Marshall Rommel (Wolfgang Preiss), and a zealous Nazi Captain (Karl Otto-Alberty). Non of these supporting characters are developed in the least, which is quite unfortunate - especially considering that the latter two are among the best "Nazi" character-actors to have ever graced the screen.

      Long on action and short on intelligence or flair, "Raid on Rommel" proves to be one immense bore from start to finish. The action sequences revolve almost completely around footage lifted from "Tobruk". This is probably because "Raid on Rommel" was shot on a shoestring budget. This shows up in that even actors from our film are substituted for by actors from "Tobruk" (there's a sequence where Burton's character is taking on a German tank, and whenever there is a cut to the "Tobruk" footage, it becomes jarringly obvious that the actor in the other shots is George Peppard rather than Richard Burton). Whole scenes, plot points and character traits seemed to lifted from "Tobruk", too, which was a real shame.

      Another deadly flaw in the film's execution is the poor choice of casting Richard Burton in the lead. I've never been a fan of Burton. His work in "Where Eagles Dare" was entertaining and fun, but nothing to stand up and applaud for. Here, he doesn't even put an effort into making his role convincing. He sleepwalks through most of his scenes; there are a few points where he calls characters by other characters' names or by the actor's name.

      Even on DVD, the non-English sections of the film (and there are several of them) are not supported by subtitles, making it almost impossible to tell what is going on between the characters. There are key discussions between Rommel and Captain Schroeder which lead up to the climax, and I could only understand snippets of these scenes thanks to a semester of college-level German.

      I had always considered Henry Hathaway a great director; after all, he was the brains behind the John Wayne classic "True Grit", one of my favorite westerns. The rest of the crew had experience limited to other low-grade movies or fairly strong TV series. At best, "Raid on Rommel" plays like an extended episode of "The Rat Patrol" and just cannot be taken seriously as a feature film. See "Tobruk" instead.

      4/10
      5Theo Robertson

      Not The Worst War Film Ever But It's Still Not A Good One

      This is one of these films that often crops up when someone brings up the topic of worst war films . It probably doesn't deserve this reputation but there's no denying it drowns in a sea of mediocrity . From the outset there's a major spanner in the works with its setting of Libya in 1943 where radio broadcasts talk of the Battle for Tobruk . The film never states when in 1943 it's set but this doesn't matter because the battle for Tobruk took place the previous year and by 1943 Rommel was on the back foot and not as this film suggests on a knife edge between victory and possible defeat . The outcome of the North African campaign was certain in 1943 , especially with the Operation Torch landings in November the previous year . One can understand some artistic license in making the stakes some what higher but not to the point of rewriting history . Wouldn't have just been easier setting the film some time in early 1942 when things were far more uncertain ?

      Richard Burton even today is a legend of British stage but his career arc in cinema left a lot to be desired and he's obviously slumming it big time here . One wonders if he's trying to emulate the success of WHERE EAGLES DARE where is character is on a top secret mission to defeat the Nazis . The problem is the top secret plan is a bit to similar to a previous and much better film called TOBRUK and if this wasn't bad enough RAID ON ROMMEL makes use of footage from TOBRUK very blatantly which leads to several instances of confused continuity and is a distraction . It also explains why Burton has his hair bleached since the climatic battle scene is culled from TOBRUK where blond haired George Peppard takes on some German tanks . As a footnote the continuity announcer pronounced the title as " Rain on Rimmill " which whilst being some what surreal sums up the carelessness of this movie

      Storyline

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      Did you know

      Edit
      • Trivia
        Nearly all the action scenes was footage taken from Tobrouk (1967).
      • Goofs
        Captain Foster fires more than the maximum magazine load of 8 shots from his Walther P38 pistol when he kills Captain Schroeder.
      • Quotes

        Maj. Hugh Tarkington: You know Rommel?

        Capt. Heinz Schroeder: Yes. He loves the Sahara. We all do. By "we", I mean the professional military.

        Maj. Hugh Tarkington: I'm not a military man, captain. War holds no romance for me. The side effects are repulsive.

        Capt. Heinz Schroeder: Here there are no side effects. No women, no children, no towns to get in the way, just men, my doctor.

      • Connections
        Edited from Brisants humains (1956)

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      Details

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      • Release date
        • July 28, 1971 (France)
      • Country of origin
        • United States
      • Languages
        • English
        • German
        • Italian
      • Also known as
        • Le cinquième commando
      • Filming locations
        • Sonoran Desert, Arizona, USA
      • Production company
        • Universal Pictures
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Tech specs

      Edit
      • Runtime
        1 hour 39 minutes
      • Aspect ratio
        • 2.35 : 1

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