One of the parts of the war I was most interested in when I was younger was the British special forces in North Africa. The Long Range Desert Group and the Special Air Service seemed (and still do) romantic, heroic, clever, daring–just cool. I read books and built models about them, and I watched movies, many of which were not that good.
Part of my fascination is how cool they look, with their vehicles crammed with equipment and bristling with guns, while the soldiers would wear non-standard uniforms and sometimes put Axis insignia on their vehicles, or so I heard. This is not a history site.
How cool are these guys? © IWM (E 21337)
So some of my fascination with this theater is a childish fan boy kind of thing, but two of the movies this post links to are really strong movies for adults; the third is Sea of Sand, which pushes all the buttons for twelve-year-old me, but leaves me yearning for a movie about the LRDG that a much-older me can also love.
Eventually I’ll review Bitter Victory, Tobruk (1967) and Raid on Rommel (1971)—eventually. I would recommend the three movies movies I’ve posted reviews of here over any of those. Bitter Victory is the strongest of the three.
Both Tobruk and Raid on Rommel are based on the same raid on Tobruk and are movies I saw many times when I was younger. Raid on Rommel reuses a significant portion of footage from the earlier film. I don’t want to try and guess the exact number, but it is obvious and striking.
Neither movie is great–I think Tobruk is better (or Raid on Rommel is worse) even though Richard Burton (who reportedly had his hair dyed, so they could use long shots of George Peppard from the earlier movie) is pretty good at that acting thing, but if you want to see Burton in North Africa, watch The Desert Rats; if you want to see him behind the lines in North Africa, watch Bitter Victory.
I’m shoehorning Ice Cold in Alex in this category because much of the action occurs behind enemy lines and because you should watch Ice Cold in Alex if you haven’t already.
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