Both actor Richard Burton and director Henry Hathaway came full circle with this film. Burton having starred in 'Desert Rats' in 1953 in which he shares a brief scene with the character of Rommel and Hathaway having directed a splendid biopic in 1951 entitled 'Rommel, Desert Fox'.
With this connection in mind one would love to enthuse about 'Raid on Rommel' but it is alas nigh on impossible to do so. The sheer awfulness of this opus beggars description and must surely represent an all-time low for both actor and director. Originally made for the small screen and soon shuffled back there after having failed dismally at the box office, it has no redeeming features whatsoever. It is basically a rehash of Universal's 'Tobruk' of 1967. It uses action sequences from that film and Burton is also obliged to have dyed blonde hair so as to achieve 'continuity' with George Peppard!
The supporting cast is uniformly awful and the female interest is provided by an actress dressed like a model on a safari shoot for Vogue. It is left to Wolfgang Preis as Rommel to supply some much needed class to the proceedings. James Mason's characterisation in 'Desert Fox' was criticised for being too sympathetic and his appearance in 'Desert Rats' was far less so. Here Rommel is portayed as a benign individual who would far rather discuss philately than military strategy.
This film would have us believe that at this point in the Desert War Rommel's Afrika Corps had the upper hand whereas by 1943 it was a spent force and on the retreat. The score by someone named Hal Mooney, is abysmal.
Hathaway's first directorial credit was a 'B' western in the early thirties and he signed off in the seventies with a risible Blaxploitation movie. Luckily for us there were a few good ones along the way. Michael Caine worked on the principle that people forget the bad ones and it would seem that Burton shared the same philosophy. It is still sad however to see this sometimes brilliant but oftentimes misguided artiste appearing in such unadulterated trash.
Review of Raid on Rommel
