Tobruk (film)
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| Tobruk | |
|---|---|
 83 men started the mission! Only 4 survived! |
|
| Directed by | Arthur Hiller |
| Produced by | Gene Corman |
| Written by | Leo V. Gordon |
| Starring | Rock Hudson George Peppard Nigel Green Guy Stockwell Jack Watson |
| Music by | Bronisław Kaper |
| Cinematography | Russell Harlan |
| Editing by | Robert C. Jones |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  February 7, 1967 March 10, 1967 March 16, 1967 |
| Running time | 107 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Tobruk is a 1967 war film set in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of the North African Campaign of The Second World War. It is a fictionalized story of Operation Agreement, and tells of 83 men, members of the British Army’s Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and the Special Identification Group (SIG), who embark on a mission to destroy the fuel bunkers of Erwin Rommel’s Panzer Army Africa in Tobruk.
Photographed in Technicolor using the Techniscope format, shot in Almería, Spain and the United States, the film was written by Leo Gordon, and directed by Arthur Hiller. This 1967 production contains many spectacular action sequences, stunts and explosions. It is a typical WW2 fictional blockbuster action movie, which were popular in the 1960s. It is comparable with such war films as The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone.
In September 1942, with the troops of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel “90 miles from” the Suez Canal, the staff of the British Eighth Army approve a plan to destroy the German fuel bunkers in Tobruk.
The original author of the plan, Major Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) has been captured by Vichy French forces and is interned in the port of Algiers. Major Craig is a Canadian expert on desert topography, desert exploration, and has extensive practical knowledge of the Sahara, thus he is considered essential to the success of the planned raid on Tobruk.
Major Craig is liberated from confinment by Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard) of the SIG and some of his men, and they then join up with the LRDG, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Harker (Nigel Green), at Kufra.
Colonel Harker explains that they have eight days to get from Kufra to Tobruk, destroy the fuel depot as well as the German field guns protecting the harbor, prior to a scheduled amphibious landing. The plan calls for the LRDG to pose as POWs being escorted by the SIG posing as German soldiers.
While on the way to Tobruk they encounter a Brithish fighter aircraft (which attacks the “German” convoy), as well as patrols of Italians, Germans, and Tuareg. During one of these encounters, both radios are destroyed.
It is from the Tuareg that group is saddled with two British prisoners, a Father and Daughter, who are traveling from Benghazi to Cairo on behalf of Germany. They have papers signed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Mohammad Amin al-Husayni) and German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, on behalf of the Führer, which is an agreement between the Reich and a group of “important” Egyptian Army Officers, that the Egyptians will rise up against the British in Jihad, a “Holy War”. The movie implies that the Egyptian revolt, similar to the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, could be enough for the entire Muslim world to fight for Germany. “Turkey alone could put four million men into the war against Russia”.
With perhaps the outcome of World War II in the balance, it is critical that the raid succeed and get to Tobruk, and get knowledge of the Egyptian Anti-British plot to British. But they soon learn that there is a traitor among them who will stop at nothing to get the agreement into German control.
[edit] Cast
The film stars Rock Hudson as a Canadian desert expert, Nigel Green as the British officer in command, George Peppard, Guy Stockwell, Leo Gordon, and Robert Wolders as Jewish Germans who join the allied forces. Jack Watson plays Sergeant Major Jack Tyne.
[edit] Academy Awards
The film was nominated for the Best Special Visual Effects Academy Award, (Albert Whitlock and Howard A. Anderson).
[edit] Trivia
- Laurence Harvey was originally going to play the role of Major Craig before Rock Hudson got the part.
- Portions of the film were edited into the 1971 Richard Burton film Raid on Rommel.
- Technical advice and assistance for the film were provided by the 40th Armored Division ("Grizzly") of the California Army National Guard.
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