RAID ON ROMMEL

 

Another movie I picked up cheap from Edward R. Hamilton, RAID ON ROMMEL is a standard 1971 WWII action-adventure produced by Universal.

The director of RAID ON ROMMEL, Henry Hathaway, had helmed THE DESERT FOX, a biography of Erwin Rommel with James Mason as the famed Field Marshal. The star of RAID ON ROMMEL, Richard Burton, had appeared in THE DESERT RATS, a film that also featured Mason as Rommel. RAID ON ROMMEL isn't as good as those earlier films--as a matter of fact, a lot of its footage was taken from another Universal WWII story set in North Africa, TOBRUK. 

RAID ON ROMMEL has elements of WHERE EAGLES DARE, THE DIRTY DOZEN, and THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, but it's not on the same scale as those action epics. Richard Burton plays a British intelligence officer who infiltrates a German POW convoy headed for Tobruk. Burton's plan is to use the POWs to attack and destroy shore batteries on the Libyan coast--but most of the commandos who were supposed to help him didn't arrive, and he has to train the POWs while on the way. Of course there's all sorts of complications, including the mistress (Danielle De Metz) of an Italian general, and a meeting with Rommel himself (Wolfgang Preiss). 

There isn't much that's surprising or unique about RAID ON ROMMEL--it's the usual "impossible mission" scenario. According to internet sources, the movie was first planned as a TV project, and it feels like a small-screen story at times. Burton is the only major name of note in the feature, unless you count Euro cult star Wolfgang Preiss, who actually resembles Rommel a bit. 

The action scenes from TOBRUK are spectacular, and are edited in so well that if you didn't know they were from another movie, you certainly wouldn't have guessed it. (Richard Burton's hair is even dyed blond so it could match up with long shots of George Peppard from TOBRUK.) For those who are wondering how a major American studio could reuse so much footage for a movie with a major director and a major star, one must remember that in 1971 there was no home video industry, or 24-hour movie cable TV channels, or geeks minutely examining films on the internet. I'm sure most folks watching RAID ON ROMMEL had no idea of the reused footage. 

If you are also wondering how Richard Burton got involved in such a project, he got paid a lot of money for not a lot of work (he does have to handle a flamethrower in one scene.) RAID ON ROMMEL was actually filmed in Arizona and Mexico, and the tanks used are not of WWII vintage. 

Also not of WWII vintage is Danielle De Metz, who looks (and acts) like a 1970 fashion model--thankfully she doesn't have much to do here. Another item that will annoy WWII buffs is that a title card at the beginning claims the story is set in 1943. In that year Rommel and his dwindling troops were on the run from the allies, and certainly not as powerful as shown in this film. 

If you can look beyond historical nitpicking, RAID ON ROMMEL is a decent, if generic, 99 minutes of action-adventure. (There's plenty of explosions, that's for sure.) I must admit I wouldn't have bought this film if it wasn't at a major discount.