The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel is a 1951 film with James Mason as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Also in the cast are Jessica Tandy and Leo G. Carroll as Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.

The film shows Hitler's best known general, Erwin Rommel, from the German defeat at El Alamein in 1942 to the time of the July 1944 plot against the Führer.This culminated in Rommel being accused of being involved (although this was never proved) and, in order to protect his family, being forced to commit suicide. The story is narrated by a Lieutenant Colonel serving in the Indian Army. Following an encounter with Rommel in Africa, he makes it his life duty following the war to discover what happened to Rommel during the final years of his life.

Mason's performance as Rommel (in this film, not its prequel The Desert Rats (film)), is generally regarded as one of his best, but the film itself was criticized upon release for being too sympathetic to the general, glossing over his initial great admiration of Hitler in order to portray him as a likeable and doomed tragic hero who realizes Hitler's evil and incompetence too late. Unusually for a World War II film, the actors (except for Luther Adler, who plays Hitler) do not play their roles with the usual phony German accents; they speak as they did in regular daily life, although none of them were German.

[edit] Trivia

• The beginning of the film shows British Commandos attempting to assassinate Rommel-with about a dozen Germans killed and half a dozen commandos also killed. Actually only about 4 Germans and 1 commando {Geoffrey Charles Tasker Keyes Victoria Cross} were killed.