Mum's Monday: The Desert Rats

I thought ‘The Desert Rats’ were all part of the ‘British Army’, but in this film we also see the ‘Headquarters of the 9^th Australian Division’.

As much it is caring to see that if a fellow wounded soldier is ok. It is wise not to crowd around him and to spread out. Ammunition can wipe out a crowd and you lose a load of soldiers in one hit. This sadly, high-lights it is hard to keep friends in the army in a war.

A sand storm comes in very handy if the enemy cannot see you then it is wise not to fire and draw attention to yourself, (Now we hear of Italian guns) until necessary.

When making this film they were not just working out the filming of it, cast and script, they also included war strategies, like where and when to give orders, the timing in a war situation and to make this film realistic, timing in this film had to be carefully worked out.

It is good to see high-lighted in this film that war isn’t all ‘Black and White’ with orders being orders and it was nice to hear of a withdrawal of a court martial charge, but this film soon gets back to business and no one else is to risk a court martial.

I feel that there is no real story line to this film, no real focus point or a solid mission. The character Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (James Mason) and Capt. ‘Tammy’ MacRoberts (Richard Burton) do discuss the mission in a conversation while they are having their wounds seen to, but this is a little flimsy in the script and is not articulated concisely.

A part that is well done, pure and simple, and yes, there is only one thing to do ‘Sleep’.

Although there is narration it is sporadic and hardly there, captions would’ve worked just as well.

Something that is good to see is that the night time scenes were filmed at night. In some films you can clearly see that what is supposed to be a scene at night is quite clearly filmed in the day time and just dimmed down a bit or with less lighting.

One loosely heart-warming story line that does run through this this film is the school connection between pupil Capt. ‘Tammy’ MacRoberts and school master Tom Bartlett (Robert Newton).

This film ends very quickly, the mission was completed and that’s it.

The film leaves me with one question, ‘Where is Montgomery?’ He is famously linked with ‘The Desert Rats’ so you would think he would be portrayed in this film somewhere, but his character is actually not in it.