TOBRUK is another decent WW2 film with a North African setting. This time around the film gets the big budget Hollywood treatment with an all-star British/American cast and expansive battle sequences which really hit home, particularly at the incredible explosive climax. For most of the running time the viewer is in familiar territory with a typical gamut of plane attacks, scenes of the characters avoiding and outwitting the Nazis, and the machinations of traitors, with the added twist that most of the characters are German Jews fighting against the motherland.The cast is very good in this one. It's fine to see Rock Hudson away from the romantic comedy genre he was so well known for while George Peppard gets to have fun with his German accent. Nigel Green is a hoot as the British colonel with the stiffest upper lip ever. The likes of Percy Herbert and Norman Rossington were standbys in this kind of production for what seemed like forever. The film boasts strong direction from Arthur Hiller and a story that keeps you intrigued right until the end, waiting to find out how it plays out. It's hard to criticise.

The year is 1942 and Germany's famed 'Desert Fox' is winning the war in North Africa. His vaunted 'Afrika Korps' is nearly unstoppable and is only a short distance from all out victory. In this movie "Tobruk" comes the story of a last desperate attempt to stop Rommel at the port city of the same name. A small detachment of specialist troops called the SIG, join British commandos who will attempt to travel 800 miles through the vast, rugged and hostile Sahara desert and attack Rommel's secret oil reserves. In order to accomplish this nearly impossible mission, the British kidnapped a highly experienced but reluctant Canadian officer, Maj. Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) so that Nigel Green as Col. Harker and George Peppard as Capt. Kurt Bergman, can convince him it must be done. Other Hollywood greats like Guy Stockwell, Jack Watson as Sgt. Maj. Jack Tyne and Leo Gordon as Sgt. Krug are what make's this film completely memorable. Interestingly enough, the story itself was written by Leo Gordon and was so well conceived, it was used to enhance a nearly duplicate film called "Raid on Rommel" four years later. As for this movie, it is so packed with inner conflicts between characters that often, it's hard to tell who they are at war with. Nevertheless, the background world conflict is sufficient to view with admiration the soldiers who willingly gave so much for what they believed. A superior action-oriented film and one which has become a Classic in its own right. Highly recommended. ****

When the well-armed Allied heroes aren't shooting, stabbing, and blowing up their Axis adversaries in Arthur Hiller's "Tobruk," they are at each other's throats in this exciting World War II action-adventure opus set behind enemy lines in the Sahara desert during 1942. "Tobruk" doesn't rank as the greatest W.W.II military thriller, but this widescreen Universal Studios production is definitely a splendid way to blow off 110 minutes. You can tell that this Rock Hudson & George Peppard war epic was filmed after World War II ended because the story features an elite German-Jewish commando squad sanctioned by the British. No World War II movie made during the actual war would have dared present such an undercover outfit because most studios shunned anything that concerned Jewish characters. For example, government propagandists in the Office of War Information/Bureau of Motion Pictures severely criticized Warner Brothers for their 1944 movie "Mr. Skeffington" because the agency felt it played into the hands of Axis propagandists and their anti-Jewish sentiments. Another reason is that the heroes wield a flame thrower, a devastating weapon that barbecues the opposition, as unsavory a way to kill as it was to die, and the OWI/BMP as well as Hollywood's Production Code Administration would have condemned it because of its graphic nature. Neither agency felt that the public was prepared to watch this kind of horrendous combat. Furthermore, the government propagandists and the PCA would never have countenanced the strife among the Allies; this would have shown the Allies in a negative light and all war movies were designed to boost morale. Casting aspersions against our Allies would never have flown in any movie. Finally, Rock Hudson's heroic protagonist Major Craig is anything but a hero of the World War II era variety. Craig warns his commanding officer Colonel Harker before the raid: "My mother didn't raise any heroes." "Tobruk" opens with this narration: "North Africa . . . September 1942. The darkest hours. The world watches as Adolf Hitler's high stepping Afrika Korps sweep onward to Egypt and the Suez Canal while the British—their strength dissipated by defeat—make a desperate attempt to regroup at El Alamein." History in a nutshell! The British want to deprive German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel of fuel for his Afrika Korps tank units. Before the British can accomplish this mission, they have to rescue a Canadian, Major Daniel Craig (Rock Hudson of "Hornet's Nest") from a Vicky French P.O.W. camp. Earlier, Craig had proposed his plan for the destruction of Rommel's fuel supplies, but the narrow-minded English High Command led by Colonel Harker (Nigel Green of "The Ipcress File") rejected it out of hand. An elite squad of German Jews sympathetic to the Allied cause masquerade as Nazis and snatch Craig from the French and then fly him back to North Africa for a rendezvous in the desert with Colonel Harker. Craig isn't sure about which side Captain Bergman (George Peppard of "The Blue Max") is on until he lands at an Allied base. Harker briefs Craig and Bergman about a proposed raid on the underground German fuel bunkers in Tobruk. Although the Royal Air Force has been hammering Rommel, Harker explains that too much fuel is still getting through to the Desert Fox. Harker uses Berman's pseudo German troops to escort a party of raiders disguised as P.O.W.s and Craig will guide them across 800 miles of the worst desert that the Sahara can offer. Craig criticizes the plan, "It's suicide!" Harker proclaims as a rebuttal: "It's orders!" Our heroes have several minor encounters with the enemy. First, they trick nearby encampments of Italian and German troops to fire on each other while they slip past them. Second, they plunge into a German mind field at considerable peril to themselves to dissuade Axis pursuit. Third, they encounter a native tribe that sells them two British subjects, a father and daughter working for the Nazi, for ten rifles. The father, Henry Portman (Liam Redmond of "Barry Lyndon"), has a special message called the Kesselring document about a group of dissent generals in the Egyptian Army who are plotting to attack the British. Eventually, Portman and his daughter die through misadventure and we learn that a traitor walks among Captain Bergman's men. Not long afterward, our heroes cruise into Tobruk with a German police escort. They discover to their shock that two reserve divisions of the Afrika Korps are relaxing in Tobruk. Our heroes scramble to warn Her Majesty's Royal Naval assault troops to cease and desist. Craig and Bergman silence the big guns at Mesa Cove and Craig appropriates a German tank and destroys the underground fuel bunkers. Bergman dies in a burst a flame on the background. The German spy emerges at the finale and Colonel Harker shoots him before he is shot by the Germans. Major Craig and three survivors escape and make it to a Royal Navy pick-up farther up the coast.Arthur Hiller makes certain that we are never in the dark about what is going to happen. Leo V. Gordon's tightly written script provides a wealth of exposition. Hiller takes the starch out of some typical war movie scenes. Instead of staging the briefing in full uniform in a tent, Hiller has the commanding officer brief Hudson and Peppard while he is taking a shower. He conducts the remainder of the briefing without a shirt. "Tobruk" is undoubtedly the first World War II movie where Jews are action heroes and their British commanding officer above Peppard questions their trustworthiness. Hudson is adamantly an anti-hero, but he handles the flame thrower well and he knows out to steal a German tank with a dud hand grenade. There's lots of crisp interesting dialogue in this explosive, action-packed tale about heroes. Hudson makes a good level-headed hero, while Peppard wins our hearts with his bravado, especially in his death scene.

You know, I miss Rock Hudson. I miss the fake guy I guess, the guy who had to hide his sexual orientation because of the way the world is about 'manliness.' Anyway, Tobruk is a gritty little war thriller escapade that causes the viewer to sweat and recall a far away war in the desert, a war that had justification. Political diatribe aside, Tobruk reminds us about treachery, duplicity and the ever toxic fifth column that insinuated itself into WW11. Hudson is magnificent, Peppard is intense and aware and Nigel Green, a particular favourite, has that snooty, over-bearing right at all costs attitude down to a Tee. The Portman father and daughter fifth column team seem especially right.The screenplay was written by the much under-rated Leo Gordon. And okay, I acknowledge that he must have watched Guns Of Navarone a few times. Still, its a fun war film (if that's possible.) His ferocious, simmering presence has a small but useful role in the filmThe world I belong to has vagueness as an ethical base. Tobruk and films like it remind me of a more pure, righteous and simpler time. Sorry, I know that's a bit sentimental but age does that.