If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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.

I just want to know why there is a another movie just like this one, with different actors. It is called Raid on Rommel and was made in 1971. Several of the same scenes are used in both movies. The story line is the same, just the actors are different. Any one out there have any ideas? I would never have noticed but for some reason one night both movies were showed back to back on a local late night movie. There were a lot of things not historically correct with both, but they were both entertaining and I enjoyed them both. The main character in this one is Rock Hudson, were Richard Burton is the main character in the other one. This has just been something that has always bothered me since watching both movies that night.

A lot of the comments above seem to be focused on whether or not the film-makers got the tanks and trucks right, yet at the same time, the writers admit they loved the movie. Me too; and I don't give a damn about the equipment, so long as it's reasonably close to the real thing. Here's the point: a war film that tackles the big issues which the war itself was partly fought over is such a rare bird – and especially one that's combined with some good character writing and knockout action sequences – that one should embrace it. The movie gives us spectacle, yes, but it does so in a thoughtful way, a remarkable achievement when one considers that the typical war movie of the era was more like "Where Eagles Dare" than this one, ie, a farrago of nonsense designed to showcase ludicrous special effects sequences."Tobruk" may not be the literal truth, but it shows people committed to and fighting for beliefs and ideas, and fully prepared to sacrifice their lives if necessary to achieve that greater good. Stirring stuff, and the editing in the final tank sequence is nothing short of amazing.

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.