Taglines: He took on Rommel… the Sahara… and a unit of untrained men to blow the Desert Fox to hell…
Raid on Rommel movie storyline. In Libya in 1942, Captain Alex Foster (Burton), an intelligence officer with the British Army, allows himself to be captured by a German Afrika Korps convoy transporting British prisoners, pretending to be injured. Once integrated with the prisoners, remnants of a commando force and a medical unit, Foster outlines his plans to take over the convoy, with the help of the prisoners, and redirect it towards the Libyan port town of Tobruk.
On the way, they find an unexpected concentration of German tanks, and they surmise that a fuel depot must be hidden nearby. Foster, in Afrika Corps uniform, and Major Tarkington (Clinton Greyn), the medical officer as his ‘prisoner’, gain access to the depot and meet Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Wolfgang Preiss). During a friendly dispute over philately between Rommel and Tarkington, Foster notices a map which indicates the location of the fuel depot.
They make excuses, leave, capture a tank, and blow up the fuel dump. They escape towards Tobruk, where they destroy a coastal battery. The prisoners are embarked in boats launched by attacking Royal Navy warships. However, Foster and Tarkington are captured by German soldiers. The film leaves their fates unexplained.
Raid on Rommel is an American B movie in Technicolor from 1971, directed by Henry Hathaway and set in North Africa during the Second World War. It stars Richard Burton as a British commando attempting to destroy German gun emplacements in Tobruk. Much of the action footage was reused from the 1967 film Tobruk, and the storyline is also largely the same.
Raid on Rommel (1971)
Directed by: Henry Hathaway
Starring: Richard Burton, John Colicos, Clinton Greyn, Wolfgang Preiss, Danielle De Metz, Karl-Otto Alberty, Christopher Cary, John Orchard, Greg Mullavey, Brook Williams, Michael Sevareid
Screenplay by: Richard M. Bluel
Production Design by: Frank Beetson
Cinematography by: Earl Rath
Film Editing by: Gene Palmer
Set Decoration by: Robert C. Bradfield
Art Direction by: Henry Bumstead, Alexander Golitzen
Makeup Department: Larry Germain, Ron Berkeley
Music by: Hal Mooney
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: February 12, 1971
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