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The Desert RatsRating:
Release Date: 21 May, 2002 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (13 total) |
The Desert Rats Reviews
A GLIMPSE INTO DESERT WARFARE WITH BURTON & MASON AS OUR TOUR GUIDES
IN A NUTSHELL: A GLIMPSE INTO DESERT WARFARE
Former editor, turned up-and-coming director, Robert Wise, essentially turns an otherwise fairly standard world war 2 yarn into a classic war film. Tight editing, decent special effects, a good screenplay plus compelling action scenes led by Burton, alongside an able British and Aussie sounding cast, lift "The Desert Rats" to cinematic respectability.
"The Desert Rats" delivers in the action department with a frontal Panzer attack in the opening minutes of the film and tries to keep up the pace for 88 minutes.
WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT
Richard Burton [Lt. Colonel MacRoberts] is a hard-nose officer in the British Eighth Army. He's entrenched at Tobruk and battling Rommel's Africa Corp. Hastily placed in charge of a newly arrived, green Australian unit, MacRoberts keeps tight discipline and asks the impossible of his men. Nevertheless, the results for McRoberts are surprisingly good as he and his men play their roles in continuing the defensive efforts at Tobruk for more than 8 months against Rommel. In good story telling form, we see the action more than hear about it, and it is all rather believably depicted.
Probably for the audiences benefit, MacRoberts is temporarily captured by the Germans in a night raid, where, while having a wound field dressed, he meets and defiantly dares Rommel [James Mason], "if you can crush Tobruk - then crush it!"
Afterwards, amidst a nice action scene where the German truck carrying the allied prisoners is strafed by Spitfires, MacRoberts escapes and returns too easily to the allied side, across enemy lines.
--- *THE PLAYERS* ---
Richard Burton - Capt. MacRoberts
Robert Newton - Bartlett
Robert Douglas - General
James Mason - Rommel
Torin Thatcher - Barney
Chips Rafferty - Smith
Charles "Bud" Tingwell - Lt. Carstairs
The film is narrated throughout by what I believe is the voice of Michael Rennie, who played "Klaatu" in the "Day the Earth Stood Still" and was a "voice" in the preceding "The Desert Fox", 1951.
---* THE PRODUCTION CREDITS *---
Robert Wise - Director [WEST SIDE STORY, SOUND OF MUSIC, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL & EDITOR OF "CITIZEN KANE"]
Robert L. Jacks - Producer
Richard Murphy - Screenwriter [Nominated for ACADEMY AWARD - BEST SCREENPLAY]
Lucien Ballard - Cinematographer
Leigh Harline - Composer (Music Score)
Alfred Newman - Composer (Music Score)
Barbara McLean - Editor
Addison Hehr - Art Director
Lyle Wheeler - Art Director
Ray Kellogg - Special Effects [between 1950-1955 did effects for about 50 feature films, ended with Tora!Tora!Tora!, 1970]
BOTTOM LINE: "THE DESERT RATS" - SIMPLY A TIGHT WELL DONE WAR DRAMA
This simple film holds up well [now 54 years] on the foundation of an excellent screen play. Burton, Mason and Wise really team-up well to keep this film really tight and mostly filled with relevant and exciting action for 88 minutes.
Ode to the defenders of Tobruk
Richard Burton playing English captain Tammy MacRoberts is solid in the well done WW2 flick "The Desert Rats". Burton is assigned to mold a group of green Australian recruits shipped into the besieged garrison of Tobruk during the 1941 offensive push of Fieldmarshal Rommel through North Africa. The stern Burton is tough yet efficient but certainly not loved by the fun loving Aussies, who balk at his regimented ways.
Rommel played by the talented James Mason, who despite his Britsh roots utters most of his lines in authentic sounding German. His German accent when speaking English holds up very well. Rommel is compelled to conquer Tobruk in his plan to conquer Egypt and control the Suez Canal. The troops deployed there however using underground shelters built into the flat desert landscape doggedly withstand the nerve wracking and continual artillery shelling.
They hold out for eight months styming Rommel's attempt to overrun their defenses. Although "The Desert Rats" was released eight years after the war in 1953, the film serves as a tribute to the brave men that served there.
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