The Desert Rats
Tags: violence

Plot synopsis:
During mid-April 1941 in North Africa, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (James Mason) and his Afrika Korps have driven the British Army into headlong retreat toward Egypt and the vital Suez Canal. Standing in Rommel's way is Tobruk, a constant threat to his supply lines. The 9th Australian Division are charged with holding the port for two months, at which time they are to be relieved.
The defending Allied general (Robert Douglas) chooses British Captain "Tammy" MacRoberts (Richard Burton), an experienced field officer, to take command of a company of newly arrived, untried Australian troops. The no-nonsense MacRoberts is disliked by the undisciplined Australians. He is surprised to see in their ranks his former schoolmaster, Tom Bartlett (Robert Newton). Bartlett, an alcoholic, later explains that after being dismissed from his job in Britain due to his drinking, he went to Australia and joined the army while intoxicated. MacRoberts offers to transfer him to a safer billet, but Bartlett turns him down.
Because of the desperate situation, the inexperienced troops are sent directly into the front line. The men dig foxholes and prepare for Rommel's certain attack. The Allied general masses his artillery where he guesses the Germans will strike. His gamble pays off. Under cover of a sandstorm, they attack exactly where the general predicted and head directly at MacRoberts' men. In the fierce battle, Captain Currie is wounded. Lieutenant Harry Carstairs (Charles Tingwell) abandons his vital post to go to his aid, in vain. After the Germans are beaten back, an infuriated MacRoberts vows to have Carstairs court-martialed for disobeying orders and leaving a dangerous hole in the line, but Bartlett persuades MacRoberts to retract his request.
MacRoberts receives a field promotion to major, then a temporary one to lieutenant colonel after the general elevates him to command of his battalion of Australians. The general then decides to erode the besiegers' confidence by sending out small commando raids every night. MacRoberts' patrols do their part in exacting a toll on the enemy.
One day, the general worries about reports of German heavy artillery being moved up, indicating an attack is imminent. The suspected location of the artillery's ammunition dump is too far away to be attacked by the usual nighttime raid, so MacRoberts proposes using trucks abandoned by the Italians to drive there in disguise and blow it up. MacRoberts leads 54 picked men in three trucks. The attack is a success, but Carstairs is killed and MacRoberts is wounded and captured. While he is being attended to, he meets Rommel, who has been shot by a strafing Spitfire. Although he is respectful to the field marshal, MacRoberts defiantly points out that Tobruk is a thorn in his side. Rommel is bemused by his brashness and orders that he be treated well.
Later, as the prisoners are being transported, their trucks are attacked by RAF fighter aircraft. In the confusion, MacRoberts and Sergeant "Blue" Smith (Chips Rafferty) get away. After an exhausting walk through the desert, they reach friendly lines. The Australians have now held on for eight months.
In November the general tells his officers that a relief column led by General Claude Auchinleck is headed for Tobruk. However, they need to take control of a key hill that overlooks the road that Auchinleck must use. The general asks MacRoberts to take his best company and hold the position for three days. On the morning of the ninth day, fearing that the men can take no more, MacRoberts orders a retreat, though Bartlett begs him to ask the men to hang on. To MacRoberts' surprise, the men refuse to leave. Bartlett overcomes his self-professed cowardice by manning the forward observation post, where survival is measured in hours. Just after the Germans bombard the hill, the Australians hear bagpipes announcing the arrival of Auchinleck's troops. After a hard-fought 242 days, the Allies have relieved Tobruk.

Review: Before Australia and New Zealand were threatened with attack on the home front, they sent as they did in the First World War, an expeditionary force to help Great Britain protect the Suez Canal, the lifeline of the British Empire.
When not focusing on the battle sequences, The Desert Rats is about the relationship between Burton and Newton.
Tingwell never made another American film, but Rafferty came back a few times and his presence makes every film he's in just a bit better.You might recognize Michael Rennie's voice doing the offscreen narration for The Desert Rats.
Through the fire and hell of battling the Desert Fox and his war-hardened troops MacRoberts by lifting their spirits and their morale eventually melds his men into a fighting fit group of warriors.
I also liked the side story of the young captain who is surprised to have under his command a favourite old school master, Bartlett played by Robert Newton.
I recommend this b & w film to all war movie buffs of this English made genre but if you're looking for 'Saving Private Ryan' perhaps you should give it a miss..
An excellent look at the British war effort against the Germans and Italians in North Africa.
That is is based loosely on real events and in many cases ANZAC and British troops did hold back Rommel's attacks many times only enhances the story.
One of the most realistic and best of the fifties war movies with excellent direction by Robert Wise.
With the British in full retreat, nothing stood in Rommel's way but the tiny garrison of Empire troops cut off in the fortress won of Tobruk.Meantime, Germans dropping leaflets captioning : Surrender!
. The picture is the story of Tobruk and the men who made up its garrison, of the fight they made against the pick of Hitler's troops and of the nickname they won with blood and bore with pride: ¨The Deser Rats¨.
British headquarter Cairo's ordered to take up defensive positions for two months ,reunited the officers(Robert Douglas, Torin Thatcher, among others) deal the Tobruk 's defense : the positions are the following, the first line of defense ,using the old Italian perimeter, the second line by Colonel White's supporting artillery and the inner fortification.
The British plan of defense is based chiefly on the belief of a Bilzkrieg by Rommel(a splendid James Mason reprise his role from ¨The Desert fox¨).
The General assigns to McRoberts, an infantry captain with battle experience, twice decorated, he must put into the line.The crusty captain( a stiff but sensitive acting by Richard Burton) takes a charge of an Australian division formed by valiant soldiers and a kind-hearted schoolmaster alcoholic(sensible performance by Robert Newton steal the show as drunk turned reluctant soldier) fighting a desperate rearguard action against overwhelming German forces.This reconstruction of a phase in the battle of Tobruk(deeds also filmed by Arthur Hiller in ¨Tobruk¨ with Rock Hudson) is correctly based on true events, though excessive importance for the Aussies.
Occupied by Italy 1911, Tobruk was taken by Britain in Operation Battleaxe 1941.It was captured by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel June 1942 after the retreat of the main British force to Egypt, and this precipitated General Sir Claude Auchinleck's replacement by General Bernard Montgomery as British commander.
While the other reviewers may criticize its historical accuracy, as someone who grew up hearing war stories from American and Canadian WWI and WWII veterans, it does capture the feeling of a period without going overboard on heroics or far-fetched plot twists..
In 1941, during the World War II, Field Marshal Erwin von Rommel (James Mason) tries to conquer the city of Tobruk in Libya and the British battalion defends this location to avoid Rommel to reach the Suez Canal.
'Tammy' MacRoberts (Richard Burton) leads a limited number of inexperienced Australian troops in the defense of Tobruk, and uses raids during the night against Rommel forces to keep the balance between the strong German army and the reduced British-Australian forces, and MacRoberts' troops are called "The Desert Rats".
"The Desert Rats" is a very realistic war movie, presenting strategies, battles, action scenes and a great duel between James Mason and Richard Burton.
I am not sure whether Robert Wise used footage of some real battle scenes along the film, since the realism in the black and white photography is amazing and sometimes it looks like a documentary.
The North Africa Campaign, the Siege of Tobruk and the Desert Rats all have an important place in the British and Australian Psyche during and after the Second World War, and it took less then 10 years after the war for a film about the Siege to be made.In 1941 British and Australian troops had control of the fortress town of Tobruk in Libya.
The British high command order the Australian General Leslie Morshead to hold Tobruk for 2 months to disrupt the German supply lines.
The main focus of the film is on a British officer, 'Tammy' MacRoberts who is given command of a fresh batch of Australian troops, including his former school master.
He has to train his troops to get them ready for the battle and first the bitter war.The acting isn't that good, the Australian accents were awful and it would have been easier if their casted Australian actors.
However Rommel did call the army the rats of Tobruk.Personally I would like to see a new film about the war in North Africa because their are many interesting stories and battles, from the Battle of El-Alamein, the story of Rommel and Montgomery, Operation Touch, the Birth of the SAS, etc...
The Desert Rats is an unpretentious war film that tells a good story with economy.
The heroics come without drum-rolls.The most fascinating part of this film is to watch both the marvelous Robert Newton and the under-rated James Mason give Richard Burton acting lessons.Burton tends to chew the scenery when he snarls, "Good-morning," as though he were the youngest in a large family, doing anything for attention.Newton counters Burton's unnecessary histrionics with a beautifully modulated realization of-himself in disguise as Prof.
Of course he practiced playing this brilliant German General in the better-known film, The Desert Fox.Burton comes across as pure ham in The Desert Rats, but there IS one scene he has where he is honest and effective.
Desert Rats is a 'good old stiff upper lip' yarn with angry young man, Richard Burton, putting in a blinder.
The factual about the Germans using Thompson sub machine guns is only partially true....While the Germans did not outfit their troops with the extremely popular gun of American origin....it is an indisputable fact that throughout the war in all theaters....and especially in a hotly contested battle ...which the first "battle of Tobruk" certainly was....captured enemy weapons were frequently used as is evidenced even within the film when the "Rats" turned the Germans guns on them....by the way in one case it was clearly an "army surplus" 50 caliber heavy machine gun also American made.....but these little nits and picks do little to detract from the overall flow of the movie..
There are more than a few inaccuracies in this movie, starting off with the fact that 'The Desert Rats' was - and is - the nickname of the British 7th Armoured Division, and comes from their mascot, the jerboa.
I wouldn't try to comment on the technical points of equipment, but, on the strategic side, the producers did a better job with their research than many other WWII movie makers.The garrison of Tobruk at the start of the siege in April 1941 consisted of 9th Australian Division (the 'Rats of Tobruk', not the 'Desert Rats'), 18th Australian Brigade and a British Army Tank regiment (equipped with infantry tanks).
This force of around 100,000 men was all the High Command would allow him for most of the campaign, because of the supply problems.So, at the start of the siege, the allies were heavily outnumbered, just as the movie shows.
By October, the Australians had been on reduced rations for six months, and at the insistence of the Australian government they were gradually replaced by British and Free Polish troops.The film is also accurate in the depiction of the final engagement of the siege, with 2/13th holding El Duda, just east of Tobruk.
Of course, the main reason he was not able to attack again before the Crusader offensive was the German invasion of Russia on 22 June, putting Africa a distant last on the priority list for supplies and reinforcements.Rommel did finally take Tobruk in his Gazala offensive of May/June 1942, at which time it was held by inexperienced South African troops.
It can also be called cousin to THE DESERT FOX, also with James Mason as Rommel, a very similar film with a broader and longer(time element) story.
TOBRUK in particular has always had a spectacular explosive ending, indeed one of the largest in cinema history in my opinion.Given the comparison, THE DESERT RATS is more interesting film, certainly the more realistic.
The Desert Rats is a fairly standard 1950's World War II picture.
As the British and Anzac forces had to repel Rommel's forces, wave after wave over the course of eight months, using every trick in the book to make sure that the German forces were unable to reach the Suez canal.Robert Wise does a good job of shooting exciting action scenes that were better then a-lot of films at the time.
As a pure action film it does a good job of showing the toll war can have upon soldiers.
In "The Desert Rats" he is the young officer leading his men into battle or more specifically, into the battle for Tobruk and he really is very good and as war films go, this is a tight and exciting picture, (it clocks in at under 90 minutes).
Robert Wise was the director and you can tell this movie was directed by a great editor; there isn't a wasted moment in the whole film and the action scenes are brilliantly handled.
James Mason once again appears as Rommel and there's a fine supporting performance from Robert Newton as Burton's old schoolmaster, now a private in his command..
I don't know much about the Second World War in Northern Africa but Rommel was also known as the desert fox.
Oh, Richard Burton looks good in a uniform, his face a little sweaty and his cap tilted on his brow, conflicted about giving an order to his troops.
Mostly, it's about the strategy Richard Burton, his superiors, and his troops employ in order to stay alive in the middle of the desert before reinforcements can help them.
It was things like this – a bit of lateral thinking to give us a feeling for the protagonist's plight – that Robert Wise was really good at.The post-war period had seen the rise of the UK film industry, and unsurprisingly the best British stars were being poached for Hollywood productions.
The end is semi real with the armored relief coming through but unseen only after taking heavy casualties and to top it off the besieged port of Tobruk is captured later in the campaign by Rommel and his Afrika Korp after another lesson in mobile warfare.
The Desert Rats is directed by Robert Wise and written by Richard Murphy.
It stars Richard Burton, Robert Newton, Robert Douglas, Torin Thatcher, Chips Rafferty and James Mason.
So here we have the battle of Tobruk orchestrated by the astute Robert Wise, the plot is simple, but the characterisations are most certainly not, with lead men Burton and Newton terrific.This important part of the war is given mature treatment, with the battle sequences realistically staged and the tactical nous of allied force leaders rightly given credence.
While elsewhere it should be noted that this is, perhaps inevitably, not an accurate history lesson, so students of Tobruk don't be basing your thesis on this telling.Still, a good quality war pic for sure.
Robert Newton, on the other hand, is simply wonderful in his role, and James Mason is marvelous as Rommel (though he is barely in the movie.)
Its a drame the rest , then they go on spy missions and blow up a ammunitions factory which is boring , germans talk german without subtitles ,the last stand on the hill is boring too , they said they are taking heavy casualties but dont show us any battle , we only see them tired , pretty silly how nice Rommel (James Mason) was to MacRoberts (Richard Burton) , BORING
The Desert Rats is a very enjoyable WWII film dealing with a portion of the war that may seem alien to those in America.
The Desert Rats is the story of the Allies last stand in Northern Africa at Tobruk.
MacRoberts (Richard Burton) and his band of green Aussie replacements to stop the advance of Hitler's army.When you read comments about war movies, you always read complaints about historical accuracy.
The battle scene between the dug-in Aussie's and Rommel's tanks is as exciting and well filmed as I've seen in a war movie.
On top of that, Robert Newton is in his company, and Newton was Burton's old schoolmaster, now turned into a semi-coward.Tobruk at the time was a crummy seaport surrounded by the Afrika Corps.
Who am I to argue?COMMENT: Although Mason again essays the role of Rommel, he makes only a few brief appearances and plays the character differently from his study in The Desert Fox. Half the time he speaks German with an English accent, and the other half English with a German accent!
What is more, he comes closer to the conventional Hollywood portrait of the Nazi officer, playing Wagner in his tent and exchanging "Ve will conquer zee vorld!" dialogue with Richard Burton's sassy British POW.Of course, these changes are not directly attributable to Mason, but are the work of the scriptwriter and the director, who could not have anticipated that The Desert Fox and Desert Rats would be re-issued as a double bill.
Richard Burton and Robert Newton are ingeniously worked into the cast, Robert Douglas makes an acceptable C.O. and there are some dinky-di Aussies on hand including Chips Rafferty, Charles Tingwell and Michael Pate (most of whose part, he tells me, landed on the cutting-room floor).The action scenes are excitingly staged, but on the whole the film is a mite disappointing.
Richard Burton was excellent as the hard-nosed Captain in the English army working along with a platoon of Australians in this 1953 film.
The Burton character takes him under his wing and heeds his advice not to bring a fellow soldier up on charges for insubordination when the latter went on to save lives.In one raid Burton is captured by the Germans and gets to meet Field Marshal Rommel, always well played by James Mason.
Burton's escape and return to his men was rushed through and the ending of successfully holding off the Germans at Tobruk was also hurried..
Solid enough desert war picture with a good cast to be enjoyed.
THE DESERT RATS is something of a follow-up to THE DESERT FOX, which also starred James Mason as Erwin Rommel and covered some of the North African campaign.
However the emphasis of this film is very much on the Allied forces, particularly an Australian platoon who baulk at their new captain, the Scottish Tammy MacRoberts.First off, the title is a misnomer; this isn't about the 'desert rats' but rather about the siege of Tobruk and the dedicated men who fought back against the encircling Nazi siege.
The desert-set action is quite familiar from other war films (and there are a LOT of desert-themed war films in existence) but what makes this one work is a fast pace and some good supporting cast members.Mason doesn't have a big role to play in this film although he does get to share a strong scene with Burton.
***SPOILERS***Excellent portrayal of the 242 day siege of Tobruk with Richard Burton as British Captain Tommy MacRoberts holding the line against wave after wave of attacking German and Italian assaults on the Lybian port city of Tobruk.
There's again James Mason as German General Irwin Rommel leading the charge against the port city that he needs to supply his troops for his planned capture of Egypt and it's Suez Canal that can knock Great Britain out of the war.With almost 90% of the troops under his command being Australians the British Captain MacRoberts needs to win their respect before their willing to risk their lives for him.
One of those Aussies is MacRoberts former school teacher Tom Bartlett, Robert Newton, who's now a helpless drunk but wants MacRoberts to put him on the front lines to both overcome his drinking problem as well as get his courage back.Ordered by the nameless general in charge-Leslie Morshead-in the films closing credited played by Robert Douglas to hold Tobruk at all costs and promoted to Let-Coronal MacRoberts is almost killed and eventually captured by the Germans and gets to have a chat with the German General Rommel about how helpless his situation is.
Back to the British lines Let-Col. MacRoberts now waits for the final attack by German/Italian forces on "Fortress Tobruk" knowing that if he and his men, who he has now gained their respect,can't repel their advance Britain and its both colonies as well as Commonwealth is kaput!P.S The British and Australian troops do hold off Rommels assaults on Tobruk and eventually were relieved on November 27, 1941 in "Operation Crusader" lead by British General Auchinleck-Known as the "Auk"-after suffering some 6,000-Mostly Australian- casualties in the 242 day siege.
A fictional account of a British officer in command of ANZAC Austrialian troops defending the North Africa city of Tobruk from Rommel's Afrika Korps in WW2.*Special Stars- Richard Burton, Robert Newton, James Mason, Torin Thacter, Robert Douglas, Charles Tingwell and Chips Rafferty.
Early film role for Richard Burton.
James Mason played Rommel again in a 20th century Fox film two years before in 'Desert Fox'.