Review of Tobruk (1967) by Jon C — 26 Sep 2010

One of the great 60's war films, right up there with The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare, which all presented World War Two as a great visual spectacle.

In this particular film we have Rock Hudson, portraying a Canadian military officer, being rescued from capture by the French in North Africa by a group of Jewish German commandos under the leadership of George Peppard, here in one of the many action roles he worked in before he became the leader of the A-Team on television. The Jews want to fight back against their Nazi oppressors and have a definite axe to grind, and the British just want to see Rommel's advance towards Egypt stopped dead, and to do that they mount an ambitious, suicidal mission to destroy his fuel depot in Tobruk, using these Jewish soldiers and Hudson, who is familiar with the desert and its terrain.

It's a top-notch cast, with many well-known British character actors, and it certainly is a fine action film which has no bones about showing the Germans as formidable opponents, which they certainly were.