yesterday on TCM/The Desert Fox

[onethatcares]

about Field Marshal Rommel at the end of WW2. I didn't realize he was given the option to commit suicide or be hanged.

But, for a 1950s movie the dialogue and character portrayal were eerily similar to today's political climate. The spittle throwing rant by the "Hitler" character was chilling..

Did anyone else watch this one?

[Paladin]

1. Very good movie (even in our current reich-wing circumstances).

Last edited Fri Nov 4, 2022, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

I credit James Mason's title performance and Henry Hathaway's expert, fast-moving direction.

Still amazing to me, that a rather flattering movie could have been made in 1951 about any German commander in WWII, particularly a film of this quality.

[DFW]

2. Everyone in Germany knows about Rommel's "option"

I can imagine he didn't take long to make his choice.

The best film trashing the senseless of the war was, I think, the German film of 1959 "Die Brücke (The Bridge) ."

In the closing days of the war, the not-quite-of-age boys of a small village can't wait to get into the fight, even as their families are horrified at the thought. In order to keep them away from harm, an officer assigns them to protect a tiny bridge over a creek in their own town. They aren't even told that the bridge is scheduled to be blown up anyway, to slow the American advance. One by one, these gung ho kids get a lesson what war really means, although it ends up not doing them any good. It was hailed then as the best anti-war film of the era, and STILL stand out in my mind as just that. Black and white, little action, but brief, brutal episodes. It had been written by a German who had experienced almost exactly that at the end of the war.

You go away wondering how many German civilian teenagers got killed in a similar way in the closing days of the war, thoroughly indoctrinated by their Nazi propagandists who themselves kept out of harm's way. One of the most simple, but powerful films I ever saw.

[El Supremo]

3. Mason played Rommel in two movies.

In one he faked a German accent and in the other he didn't. I forgot which the other on was.

[Doc_Technical]

4. "The Desert Rats"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Desert_Rats_(film)