Tobruk, just over 100 minutes of machismo and bravado, and of course a little history re-writing. Directed by Arthur Hiler and written by Leo Gordon, who also appears in pic, plot essentially finds an assemblage of British and German-Jewish commandos battling each others beliefs as they battle all and sundry en-route to try and destroy Erwin Rommel's fuel supply. Problems mount up, people do die, and there's a traitor in the midst to keep the mystery spicy.
It's in many ways a classically old fashioned war movie yarn, the clichés not bothersome at all. Production wise the value is mixed, with irritating back lot and back screen projection work off set by Russell Harlan's Technicolor/Techniscope photography around the Almería vistas in Spain. The action scenes are what deliver the best rewards, well except maybe the performance of the wonderfully ebullient Nigel Green and George Peppard's emotionally challenged German-Jew, who both outshine leading man Rock Hudson. In fact some of the action scenes were used again in Richard Burton starrer Raid On Rommel four years later.
Characters and inner conflicts are not fully formed, but the suspense and colourful guts of it all ensures the piece is always good value for the war movie observers. 7/10
It's in many ways a classically old fashioned war movie yarn, the clichés not bothersome at all. Production wise the value is mixed, with irritating back lot and back screen projection work off set by Russell Harlan's Technicolor/Techniscope photography around the Almería vistas in Spain. The action scenes are what deliver the best rewards, well except maybe the performance of the wonderfully ebullient Nigel Green and George Peppard's emotionally challenged German-Jew, who both outshine leading man Rock Hudson. In fact some of the action scenes were used again in Richard Burton starrer Raid On Rommel four years later.
Characters and inner conflicts are not fully formed, but the suspense and colourful guts of it all ensures the piece is always good value for the war movie observers. 7/10