La battaglia di El Alamein (1969)

Director:

Giorgio Ferroni

Writers:

Remigio Del Grosso (writer)
Ernesto Gastaldi (writer)

Release Date:

1971 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | History | War

Plot Keywords:

Germany | Self Sacrifice | Rommel | Goggles | WWII

Cast

Frederick Stafford	...	Lt. Giorgio Borri
George Hilton	...	Lt. Graham
Michael Rennie	...	General Bernard Law Montgomery
Marco Guglielmi	...	Captain Hubert
Ettore Manni	...	Italian Captain
Gérard Herter	...	General Schwartz
Robert Hossein	...	Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
Giuseppe Addobbati	...	General Georg Stumme
Sal Borgese	...	Kapow (as Salvatore Borgese)
Manlio Busoni
Giuseppe Castellano	...	Truck Driver
Mario Chiocchio
Massimo Righi	...	Italian Soldier (as Max Dean)
Giulio Donnini
Andrea Fantasia	...	Rommel's Doctor

Also Known As:

Desert Tanks
La bataille de El Alamein (France)
The Battle of El Alamein (USA)

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:11 | USA:PG

Company:

Zenith Cinematografica

Movie Connections:

Edited into I diavoli della guerra (1969)

Surprising grand-scale, big-budget, and rarely boring Italian war film

Italy, along with much of the rest of the world, was into producing lots of cheapo war movies (mostly WW2) during the late-60's. The trend died out with the disillusionment caused by the Vietnam war, as did the popularity of these "gung-ho" war films.

Battle of El Alamein isn't such a film. It's probably the most objective and anti-war film made since ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. While the battle sequences are big and exciting, there's nothing glamorous about fighting this kind of war. The soldiers are all shown as equally miserable, barely eeking out an existence in a network of trenches on the sunbaked deserts of North Africa. While it primarily focuses on the heroics of an Italian division (the real-life Italian army was best known as one of the most poorly-led and low-morale armies at the time), the film doesn't get too preachy and while it villifies no one, only showing how some generals (especially the fictional Schwartz) inevitably swung the battle in their enemy's favor due to their impatience and misguided ideals.

THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN also does a great job of blending fictional characters with nonfictional ones (like Rommel, Montgomery, Von Thoma, and Stumme) in a nonfictional setting. While the battle itself is abridged and perhaps over-simplified to focus on the Italian division, that's perhaps best for the sake of narrative, character development, and making the emotional impact as strong as possible.

Stylistically, the film is done fairly well in late-60's style, with plenty of zoom-lens technique, close-ups, etc. It does drag in spots but only due to the predictability because we KNOW that the axis is gonna lose, but it does a good job keeping the suspense high by showing the Italians taking heavy losses in every engagement. We never know which characters are gonna make it through and which ones aren't.

Despite it's flaws, I doubt a better, larger, or more compelling depiction of the battle of El Alamein shall ever be made.