The Desert Rats (1953)

Good Movie

A bit on the hammy side, but still a very enjoyable movie, depicts a true event during WWII and how war can make strange bed fellows. Good action and good effect for the time. February 18, 2008

they were rats that's for sure

Well the British took a beating but the Germans took a pounding, this movie has a great plot to go with the story. Now Richard Burton played in many movies but I'd have to say this is one of he's best on film.
This B/W flick will put you in the desert with the whole unit to fight the desert fox, all in all get this movie it's a good one. January 27, 2008

The Desert Rats

I enjoyed this movie, Its a different kind of work movie. I highly Recommended ! January 19, 2008

Grim World war 2 drama

This is a follow-up of sorts to The Desert Fox made a year or so previously .James Mason reprises his role as Field Marshall Rommel ,head of the Afrika Korps ,although this time out it is basically a cameo role as distinct from the star turn of the previous picture.
It tells the same story of the same battle ,this time from the perspective of the Ninth Australian Division .Richard Burton gives a forceful performance as Captain Roberts ,a British officer appointed to take charge of the Division ,much to his disgust as he ses the Australian conscripts as inferior to the British regulars to whom he is more accustomed .The Division is encamped near Tobruk and is surrounded and outnumbered by a better armed German army .In their ranks is one Bartlett (Robert Newton) an alcohic ,and cynic who is also Roberts' former university professor who has come down in the world.He tries to persuade Roberts that his perception of his new troops is wrong .The movie focuses on the fighting -short ,sharp and intense -and the strains which the constant danger places the men under .It is a tough ,realistic movie about the Tobruk campaign which was to prove such a turning point in the history of the war .It conveys the intensity of the challenge facing the heavily ougunned Allied forces against numerically overwhelming odds .

Newton is superb as the philosphising drunk -alternately weepy,bellicose and bawling.It is a gift role and he milks it for all it is worth .There is a commanding turn from Mason and Chips Rafferty and Charles Tingwell are impressive as Aussie soldiers .Robert Wise directs with authority and there is an award winning screenplay from Richard Murphy together with some sharp monochrome photography by Lucien Ballard

This is one of the leaner and tougher war movies of its era and repays viewing as both a good movie and accurate reconstruction of a key turning point in the war .Winston Churchill remarked of the North African campaign thay it was "Not the beginning of the end but rather the end of the beginning ",See the movie and wotk out why these words were so true December 14, 2007

It's a War Classic!!!

Richard Burton rises from pommy brass Captain to Lt. Colonel in 30 minutes. The rest of the film is a gritty classic in B/W with Burton playing off of a former schoolteacher who is now part of the Australian Army, and a battalion that Burton ends up commanding. In the end, he wins the love and devotion of the Aussies (would you expect less) in a desert warfare classic.

I would have liked to see more balance with coverage of Rommel and his forces, equally distinguished desert warriors, but that is hardly a criticism of a film that stands on its Allied own. And I higly recommend it for your war classics collection--and it even stars a young great actor in his early prime, Richard Burton! August 13, 2007

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