Tobruk (1967 film)

Tobruk
Directed by Arthur Hiller
Produced by Gene Corman
Written by Leo V. Gordon
Starring Rock Hudson
George Peppard
Nigel Green
Guy Stockwell
Music by Bronisław Kaper
Cinematography Russell Harlan
Edited by Robert C. Jones
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • February 7, 1967 (1967-02-07)
Running time
 107 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $2,000,000 (US/Canada)[1]

Tobruk is a 1967 American war film starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard and directed by Arthur Hiller. The film was written by Leo Gordon (who also acted in the film) and released through Universal Pictures.

Set in North Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II, it is a fictionalized story of members of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and the Special Identification Group (SIG) who endeavour to destroy the fuel bunkers of Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel's Panzer Army Africa in Tobruk. The movie is loosely based on the British attacks on German and Italian forces at Tobruk codenamed "Operation Agreement", though unlike the movie, Operation Agreement was a failure.

Plot

In September 1942, Rommel's Africa Korps is only 90 miles (144 km) from the Suez Canal, but running dangerously low on fuel. The British approve a plan to destroy German fuel bunkers at Tobruk in an attempt to cripple Rommel's attack.

The author of the plan, Canadian Major Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) had been captured by Vichy French forces. His expertise is considered essential to the success of the raid. Craig is rescued by Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard) of the Special Identification Group (SIG) and some of his men, German Jews serving with the British. They then join up with commandos of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Harker (Nigel Green), at Kufra in south-eastern Libya.

Colonel Harker explains they have eight days to get to Tobruk and destroy the fuel depot and German field guns protecting the harbour, before a scheduled amphibious landing and a bombing raid on the city by the RAF. They are to drive there through enemy territory posing as POWs escorted by the SIG pretending to be guards.

On the way, they encounter a patrol of Italian tanks, which stops a short distance from where they are resting in a gully. Later that night, Sergeant Major Jack Tyne (Jack Watson) spots an approaching German tank column. Harker tricks the two units into attacking each other by firing mortars, first at the Germans and then the Italians, enabling the raiders to sneak away.

Craig safely guides them through a German mine field, before they are attacked by a British Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter. They manage to shoot it down, but their radios are destroyed and the fighting attracts Tuareg tribesmen, who are friendly with the Germans. Craig, who speaks their language, exchanges some guns and ammunition for two prisoners.

The prisoners turn out to be British traitors Henry Portman (Liam Redmond), who has an Irish accent, and his daughter Cheryl (Heidy Hunt), who were shot down while flying from Benghazi to Cairo. They have papers signed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Mohammad Amin al-Husayni) and German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring: an agreement for "important" Egyptian army officers to rise up against the British in a "holy war".

That night, the Portmans are told by a mysterious SIG member about the British masquerade and where to find a gun and a map to an underground telephone cable nearby. When they reach the telephone, however, they are spotted by an Italian patrol. Henry Portman fires and is killed, while his daughter is seriously wounded.

Harker sends Bergman and Sergeant Krug (Leo Gordon) after the Portmans. They retrieve Cheryl. When Krug asks how they knew about the telephone, Bergman replies, "Very simple. One among us is the enemy". Harker has Bergman and his men disarmed. He then gives Bergman two hours to identify the traitor. The traitor kills Cheryl Portman so she cannot reveal his identity. Lieutenant Max Mohnfeld (Guy Stockwell), Bergman's second in command, appears from the tunnel the Portmans used to escape. He states the traitor is down the shaft. They find Corporal Bruckner (Robert Wolders), one of Bergman's closest friends, stabbed to death. Cheryl Portman had died from cyanide, and Bruckner's suicide tablet is missing. Bergman, however, is not convinced his friend was the traitor.

The group passes through check points just outside Tobruk. They discover that Rommel has amassed his total reserve strength at Tobruk undetected: two panzer divisions.

The RAF then bomb Tobruk as scheduled. The LRDG blow up two of the harbour guns, and Harker orders Sergeant Major Tyne to signal the ships to abort the landing before the German tanks, which have pinned down Harker's troops, can "cut them to pieces". Harker also orders Lieutenant Boyden (Anthony Ashdown) to capture the transmitter in the city in order to cancel the landing and inform their superiors of the Kesselring document. However, Boyden is killed during the bombing raid, as are two others, while Mohnfeld is knocked out.

Bergman and one of his men escape on a sidecar motorcycle and manage to destroy a tank and use flame throwers to buy Harker time. Bergman is eventually killed. Meanwhile, Craig, Krug, and two other SIG men use the distraction to escape and seize a German tank well inland. After Craig uses the tank to destroy the fuel depot, Harker and his men surrender.

Mohnfeld reveals that he is a German intelligence officer named Von Kruger and asks Harker for the document. However, Harker had already burned it. Harker kills Von Kruger with his pistol and is himself shot dead.

Craig, Krug and the two others rendezvous with a Royal Navy ship.

Cast

Academy Awards

Albert Whitlock and Howard A. Anderson were nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Production

It was photographed in Technicolor using the Techniscope format, and shot in Almería, Spain and the Glamis Sand Dunes in the Imperial Valley, of southern California in the United States.

Technical advice and assistance was provided by the 40th Armored Division ("Grizzly") of the California Army National Guard.

In the convoy heading to Tobruk the trucks used are actually M135 and M54, while the SdKfz 7's are American M3 halftracks with altered bodies. The tanks in the Italian column are in fact M48 Pattons.

Producer Gene Corman would again use Tobruk's Nazi occupation as the background in his 1990 parody film A Man Called Sarge, although this time set during the Second Battle of El Alamein, in late 1942.

Laurence Harvey was originally slated to play the role of Major Craig.

In one scene, Major Craig asks Bergman if he and his men will be returning to "Palestine", to which the latter sharply retorts by saying "Israel". However Craig is correct since the State of Israel did not exist and its territory was known as the British Mandate for Palestine from 1923 up until 1948.

Use of footage

The 1971 war movie Raid on Rommel, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Richard Burton, made extensive use of combat footage from Tobruk and also featured a very similar story-line about a British commando force infiltrating enemy lines and raiding the Afrika Korps supply bases.

DVD Information

In the 2012 release from the Universal Vault Series the subtitle track is missing. So what the Germans and Italian actors are saying in their own language is unknown. Unless one speaks German and Italian.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1967", Variety, 3 January 1968 p 25. Please note these figures refer to rentals accruing to the distributors

External links

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