Raid on Rommel (1971)

	Directed by: Henry Hathaway	COUNTRY USA GENRE War NORWEGIAN TITLE - RUNNING TIME 98 minutes
	Produced by: Harry Tatelman
	Written by: Richard M. Bluel

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Capt. Alex Foster	Richard Burton
Sgt. Allan MacKenzie	John Colicos
Maj. Hugh Tarkington	Clinton Greyn
Erwin Rommel	Wolfgang Preiss
Vivanne Gagliardo	Danielle de Metz
Capt. Heinz Schroeder	Karl-Otto Alberty
Cpl. Peter Merrihew	Christopher Cary	-
Dan Garth	John Orchard	-
Sgt. Joe Reilly	Brook Williams	-

Review

A sordid attempt at capitalizing on two recent successful war films at once – Tobruk from 1967, and Where Eagles Dare from 1968 – by shamelessly borrowing action footage from the former and take advantage of Richard Burton's success with the latter. A scheme which failed miserably. The jejune excuse of a script dabbles haphazardly with language barriers and counter-intelligence in order to set up the grand finale, which – I repeat – is basically stolen from the 1967 movie Tobruk. You won't believe it until you see it. And you also won't believe these characters, not only because "the acting in this film is very bad", as Richard Burton noted in his diaries, but also because the filmmakers aren't able to create any sort of suspense out of the amateurish intercutting between the characters' uninspired military babble and the aforementioned copied action sequences. The film is badly marred by its low-budget production values and effects. And not even Richard Burton, who was always professional enough to give his best effort no matter how dismal the role, could do anything to save this mess.