The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Henry Hathaway

Writers:

Nunnally Johnson (screenplay)
Desmond Young (biography)

Release Date:

17 October 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Biography | Drama | History | War

Plot:

The life and career of the respected World War II German general.

Plot Keywords:

Rommel | General | Hitler | Nazi Soldier | WWII

Cast

James Mason	...	Field Marshal Erwin Johannes Rommel
Cedric Hardwicke	...	Dr. Karl Strolin
Jessica Tandy	...	Frau Lucie Marie Rommel
Luther Adler	...	Adolf Hitler
Everett Sloane	...	Gen. Wilhelm Burgdorf
Leo G. Carroll	...	Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt
George Macready	...	Gen. Fritz Bayerlein
Richard Boone	...	Capt. Hermann Aldinger
Eduard Franz	...	Col. Klaus von Stauffenberg
Desmond Young	...	Himself, Lt. Colonel Desmond Young

Also Known As:

Rommel, Desert Fox (UK)
The Desert Fox (USA) (short title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #13272) | New Zealand:G | Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Imperial County, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

This film was supposed to feature George Zucco, but the actor had a stroke on the set and was committed to a sanitarium in San Gabriel, California until his death in 1960.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Colonel Count von Stauffenberg, who planted the bomb that almost killed Hitler, is shown with an eye patch over his right eye. In fact he has lost his left eye.

Quotes:

Field Marshal Erwin Johannes Rommel: [Hitler just sent an order not to retreat from El Alamein] It's an order, Bayerlein, a military order from General Headquarters. A clear, straight, stupid, criminal military order, from General Headquarters.
Gen. Fritz Bayerlein: And what are you going to do, double the insanity by obeying it? We've got the best soldiers in the German Army here. They may be just hanging on now, but they're still a force, they're still fighting. If we take them out now, they can fight again tomorrow. But this! This is sheer madness! It's out of the Middle Ages. Nobody had said "Victory or Death" since people fought with bows and arrows. Why, this is an order to throw away an entire army!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Kahlekuningas (2002)

The Rommel Story

Though The Desert Fox is good as far as it goes and James Mason is perfectly cast as Erwin Rommel, one would hope that a fuller biographical study might be done on the screen.

Erwin Rommel was one of a group of like minded military leaders in various countries who after World War I, rose to the top of their country's military establishment because they saw the value of the tank in any future war. Some of those people would be Charles DeGaulle in France, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton in America, Marshal Tukachevksy in the Soviet Union and Rommel in Germany.

In 1942 Hitler as he was constantly doing sent Rommel in to bail out the Italians who up to that point had been running the desert campaign in North Africa. With less men and supplies, his tactical ability bedeviled the Allied command until The Second Battle of El Alamein.

The film starts with Rommel as desert warfare genius and then when he does become ill and is invalided out of North Africa, the Allies regain the initiative and beat his famed Afrika Korps. Rommel is then sent to Western Europe to supervise the defenses on the Atlantic.

There comes a point when Rommel does realize that his Fuehrer is destroying his country and becomes involved in the plot to kill him and overthrow the government. That is what most of the film deals with.

James Mason is a stalwart Rommel a perfect conception of the man they called The Desert Fox. In this mostly male film, Jessica Tandy has little to do but be loyal and supportive as Frau Rommel.

Luther Adler who among other parts he played in his long distinguished career was David Ben-Gurion. He goes the whole opposite way in his portrayal of a ranting and malevolent Adolph Hitler. How a man who took his Jewish heritage as seriously as Luther Adler did, prepare for the role of Hitler is beyond my scope. But then again, there were few actors as good as he.

Though Mason does a fine job given what limited material he had to work from, archives have been opened and we know a whole lot more about Erwin Rommel. Time for another biographical study.