Königstiger vor El Alamein

British forces are seen attacking with armored personnel carriers developed after the war. The M113 APCs were first fielded by the US in 1960 and were adopted by many other armies in the Free World. The boxy shapes of their aluminum hulls are unmistakable to any G.I. like me who served in Vietnam. By this time in the war, the British were well aware of the need to have their infantry attack with their armor to keep enemy infantry from doing what the Italian soldiers are shown doing in the last battle: swarming over the tanks and taking them out with anti-tank mines and Molotov cocktails. Still this is a fairly good movie, one worth watching.

Oh dear an Italian war film . I had visions that I was going to be watching either a remake of THE DIRTY DOZEN or 90 minutes of hunky Mediterrians waving a white flag shouting " We surrender " in 97 different languages . Sorry if I'm playing up to either cinematic or historical stereotypes but unlike Mussolini I didn't have high hopes . Michael Rennie as Monty ? Well I doubt if this would be getting broadcast on The History Channel . Or indeed anywhere else in Britain

The film did defeat my prejudices , but only in the first half , and it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory and before the film reached its end titles the victory the film had over me and turned in to a defeat on the scale of Stalingrad . It is undoubtedly intriguing watching a war film from the other side . ALAMEIN isn't unforgettable human cinema in the way DAS BOOT was but does portray all sides in the conflict as being people who have families at home and it's this that is important to the characters rather than the wider politics of the conflict . Okay maybe the " War is hell " statements are overdone but it's possibly in keeping with the Italian mindset during this era . The Italians were badly equipped with obsolete equipment , very badly led and Italy would traditionally through the last couple of centuries side with the British and French often against Germany so Mussolini's pact with Nazi Germany despite being logical from a political point of view goes against the historical grain . Add to this the fact political and military leaders were quickly promoted due only to their loyalty to the Italian Fascist party and you can see why the average Italian conscript might not be too happy getting killed fighting against a democracy , especially if he knows he's probably going to be better fed in an allied POW camp than in his own army . As a battle hardened NCO realises his section is going to be led by a glory seeking officer we have all the makings of a good melodrama

The film then proceeds to blow it by going out of its way to ruin the early potential . Little things such as the anachronistic Italian helmets with their 1960s camouflage patterns you can overlook if the bigger picture is impressive but it's not . The story soon loses its early focus and instead jumps from one half baked thread to another . Rommel starts getting involved in a plot that would lead to the July 1944 bomb plot . Common myth but Rommel had nothing to do with that . British equipment includes 1960s era American APCs and 1950s era tanks and march in to battle playing bagpipes which sound nothing like bagpipes . It's interesting that the film in its early stages portrays all sides as being intelligent but then in the latter stages British tank crews don't notice Italian soldiers as they nonchalantly wander around the battlefield sticking bundles of dynamites on tanks . Tanks that conveniently have straps that you can attach bundles of dynamite to . The macho heroics jars in comparison with the first half of the film that does have an anti-war feeling to it and by this stage it has become a different and much inferior movie

One of these days the Battles of El Alamein, first and second, will get an epic film like The Longest Day, worthy of the sacrifice of the men who fought it. La Battaglia di El Alamein concentrates on the second battle which comes after Claude Auchinleck was replaced as Eighth Army Commander by Bernard Law Montgomery. English actor Michael Rennie whom I never would have chosen to play Montgomery is the only name the English speaking world will recognize from this cast. Funny thing is that a year earlier Rennie played American Fifth Army commander Mark Clark in The Devil's Brigade and Rennie actually even looks a bit like Clark. In fact I'm not sure his voice was used for Montgomery, it didn't sound like him.

The film is thrown together with some stock footage of other and better war films and it tells the story of El Alamein from the Italian point of view. Poor dubbing doesn't help matters either.

The Italians were there at El Alamein, but it seems as though Mussolini sent his troops in without any armored transport, so when Erwin Rommel orders the retreat of the Axis forces, the Italians had no way to get out of harm's way. Not that the Germans really cared because if that was the case they could fight a rear guard action. Some did and some didn't and this story centers on a small group of soldiers who did not.

As a historical side note La Battaglia di El Alamein does serve a useful purpose. But the film is hardly worthy of the story it tells let alone of the scope of the battle itself.

Italy, along with much of the rest of the world, was into producing lots of cheapo war movies (mostly WW2) during the late-60's. The trend died out with the disillusionment caused by the Vietnam war, as did the popularity of these "gung-ho" war films.

Battle of El Alamein isn't such a film. It's probably the most objective and anti-war film made since ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. While the battle sequences are big and exciting, there's nothing glamorous about fighting this kind of war. The soldiers are all shown as equally miserable, barely eeking out an existence in a network of trenches on the sunbaked deserts of North Africa. While it primarily focuses on the heroics of an Italian division (the real-life Italian army was best known as one of the most poorly-led and low-morale armies at the time), the film doesn't get too preachy and while it villifies no one, only showing how some generals (especially the fictional Schwartz) inevitably swung the battle in their enemy's favor due to their impatience and misguided ideals.

THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN also does a great job of blending fictional characters with nonfictional ones (like Rommel, Montgomery, Von Thoma, and Stumme) in a nonfictional setting. While the battle itself is abridged and perhaps over-simplified to focus on the Italian division, that's perhaps best for the sake of narrative, character development, and making the emotional impact as strong as possible.

Stylistically, the film is done fairly well in late-60's style, with plenty of zoom-lens technique, close-ups, etc. It does drag in spots but only due to the predictability because we KNOW that the axis is gonna lose, but it does a good job keeping the suspense high by showing the Italians taking heavy losses in every engagement. We never know which characters are gonna make it through and which ones aren't.

Despite it's flaws, I doubt a better, larger, or more compelling depiction of the battle of El Alamein shall ever be made.

From the British bulletin:

The opposite resistance from the "Divisione Paracadutisti Folgore" is indeed admirable. The rests of the Italian division Folgore have resisted beyond every limit of the human possibilities.

6450 paratroops, at the end of the battle only 340 survived. Some tanks on this movie looks like after war tanks. 25,000 Germans and Italians had been killed or wounded in the battle and 13,000 Allied troops in the Eighth Army. The glorious Division was destroyed during the 2nd El Alamein Battle. During this episode the V an VI Semoventi 75/18 Groups, and the DI Semoventi 90/53 Group operated under the 'Ariete' Division Command.