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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

      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.
      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!
      5ma-cortes

      Average warfare movie full of battles , explosions , thrills and extraordinary feats

      Libya 1943 . After almost three years of bitter desert warfare , Rommel's brilliant use of his Panzer divisions has driven the British into a position of desperation . The fate of the Mediterranean hangs in balance . The British troops are in progress toward the North Africa to battle the army of the Third Reich . The key point to carry out an action of attack results to be Tubruk, a shelter for Rommel and the Nazi troops, which is protected with all kinds of artillery , including powerful guns . The only option to destroy Tubruk is infiltrating an allied command, led by a British captain posing as a Nazi officer , in this area occupied by the Germans . Captain Foster (Richard Burton , though Robert Stack was initially cast) plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand-picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector . Along the way they must pass through Alix line disguised as German soldiers and they pick up and drug the lover of an Italian general called Vivi (Danielle De Metz) , blow up the entire fuel supply for the Afrika Korps, and contacts philatelic gossip with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Wolfgang Preiss who was famous for playing Nazis in Second World War films)and takes on headstrong officer Schroeder (Karl-Otto Alberty). Despite all odds they succeed with their assignment . There actually was a raid on Tobruk, 13-14 September 1942, including the German-Jewish SIG and fake British POWs .

      This thrilling wartime picture contains high-powered action-packed, shootouts , grand-scale blow-up , thrills and lots of fun ; though turns out to be average and embarrassing . The film belongs the sub-genre of warfare commandos , being highlighted by a stirring and thrilling climax with overwhelming action scenes. This sub-genre began with "The Guns of Navarone", following : ¨Dirty dozen¨ , ¨Kelly's heroes¨,and ¨When the eagles dare¨ . "Raid on Rommel" is one of the several examples of how an exhausted formula followed throughout the decade of the 1960 and early 1970. The picture bears remarkable resemblance to ¨Tobruk¨ (Arthur Hiller) , in fact portions of the film were edited into this 1971 Richard Burton film Raid on Rommel (1971) and nearly all the action scenes was footage taken from Tobruk. The greater interest to see is Richard Burton's interpretation of on the screen, but hardly have any virtue . Burton had previously appeared in two other Second World War movies set in North Africa prior to this film , as he played Captain Leith in Bitter victory (1957), fourteen years earlier and Captain 'Tammy' MacRoberts in Desert Rats (1953), eighteen years earlier. The film has a development of a very simple and plain plot with plenty of nonsense situations , sticky events ,absurd events and many other silly things .

      Colorful cinematography by Earl Rath , it was filmed on location at San Felipe, Mexico, San Felipe is in the Baja California Norte region of Mexico . Lively and jolly musical score by Hal Mooney . The motion picture was regularly by Henry Hathaway who was Hathaway's only WW II movie which wasn't made by Fox, it was made by Universal ; it was a massive flop and was quickly withdrawn from theaters . ¨Raid on Rommel" was quickly relegated to the small screen, having its television premiere on NBC . Henry had directed twenty years earlier the classic 20th Century-Fox movie about Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and also set in World War II North Africa, ¨Rommel¨, (1951). Hathaway's other movies about the Second World War were all for studio Twentieth Century-Fox and included ¨The House on 92nd Street¨ (1945); ¨Wing and a Prayer¨ (1944); ¨You're in the Navy Now¨ (1951) and ¨13 Rue Madeleine¨ (1947).
      3bkoganbing

      The Shakespearean Action Hero

      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?

      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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      FAQ14

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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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