Pretty Good

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

THE DESERT FOX is a sympathetic biopic of Rommel, one of the great Nazi generals, who led his troops to victory in North Africa before becoming embroiled in one of the most notorious conspiracies of the Second World War. What's apparent from the outset is just how well made this movie is: it's an exemplary piece of story-telling, crisply shot, fast-paced, and with real heart behind it.Much of the film's success is down to James Mason in the titular role. Mason was always a consummate professional and no more so than here; his portrayal of a conflicted figure is an entirely sympathetic one and it's hard to imagine another actor doing so well in the role. The supporting cast is fine, too, but it's Henry Hathaway's direction which really shines. He brings a freshness and vitality even to those moments which are well-known to history, and his film is utterly compelling as a result. Great stuff indeed.

I'm at that point in my life where I'm so jaded and despondent to movies in general that I rarely waste my time. Not that Hollywood is slacking, because they are not, but just that a lot of the thrill is gone from watching the hero tale unfold. But this little gem was so surprising and "unkempt" from an expectations point of view that I found myself in constant admiration. The "hero" of the story is a man who completely embodies the virtues of "the right" (the dutiful soldier) and INCOMPLETELY embodies the values of "the left" (putting human decency above order) and his conflicting inner compulsions yield ambiguous, or perhaps ironic, results.His wife plays "the wife" in a way that complicates and elevates her role in a subtle but powerful way -- much as in real life.I thoroughly enjoyed this, admired it, and hope the whole world enjoys and appreciates it. This is class, classy art.

"The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel" is a remarkable film, although not necessarily because of the acting, directing or script. It is remarkable because it is an American biography of a senior German officer, with a predominantly British cast, which takes a sympathetic view of its subject even though it was made in 1951, only six years after the end of the war, and at a time when many Americans and Britons would still have harboured bitter feelings towards all things German, especially that country's military establishment.Despite the title "The Desert Fox", the North Africa campaign of World War II plays a relatively minor role in the film. The battle of El Alamein in 1942 comes surprisingly early in the film and is given surprisingly little emphasis. The film is less about Rommel's career as commander of the Afrika Korps than about his part in the July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. The Rommel we initially see is an apolitical career officer, neither a Nazi party member nor a convinced anti-Nazi, but after El Alamein and the defeat of the German forces in Africa he gradually becomes disillusioned with the course the war is taking and becomes convinced that Hitler is leading Germany to disaster. Eventually he is persuaded to join the conspiracy by an old friend, Dr. Karl Strölin.This was the first of two films in which James Mason played Rommel; the other was "The Desert Rats" from two years later, and gives a calm and authoritative performance as an honourable commander who is prepared to sacrifice his life in an attempt to free his country from a tyrannical dictatorship. The other performance which stands out is from Luther Adler as a ranting, deranged Hitler, convinced in the face of all the evidence of his own military genius. Adler, incidentally, was Jewish, something which will doubtless cause great annoyance to Hitler should this film ever be shown at the local cinema in Hell. (Mason himself had been a conscientious objector during the war, so it is perhaps ironic that he should have portrayed one of that war's great heroes).The film contains one historical inaccuracy in that it implies that Rommel's superior, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, was aware of the July 20th plot and wished it well, without actually participating in it. In reality von Rundstedt was outraged by the plot and even served on the "Court of Honour" which tried those plotters who were members of the Wehrmacht. The film also, perhaps, fails to ask awkward questions about whether Rommel and the German Resistance could have done more earlier in the war to oppose Hitler or whether they would have acted in 1944 had the military tide still been running in Germany's favour.Nevertheless, "The Desert Fox" is a good film, a war film which shows that heroic acts can be performed away from the actual battlefield. It also deserves praise for its generous recognition of the facts that honour in war was not the sole prerogative of the Anglo-Americans, that not every German was a Nazi and that our late enemies were also capable of decency and humanity. 7/10

Barely four years earlier (it opened in December, 1947) Jessica Tandy had created the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire and had barely ended the Broadway run when she was reduced to a supporting role as Frau Rommel, a role that required little more than passive domesticity and one that any contract player could have undertaken. Not so with the lead; few film actors of the day - Germans excepted, of course - could have brought the gravitas that Mason did to the sympathetic portrayal of a man that audiences were not yet prepared to view sympathetically. At the time the film boasted the longest - approximately one reel - pre-credit sequence of any film made up to that point but overall journeyman director Henry Hathaway turned out a fine film.