Tank Force

Members of the eponymous tank force languishing in a North African POW camp in North Africa during WWII plan a daring escape. An ageing Victor Mature looks out of place surrounded by a host of British character actors in an otherwise solid little action picture filmed in Technicolor. Its routine plot is enlivened by strong action in the opening and closing scenes, a Polish character who switches repeatedly from good guy to bad, and an interesting German officer with a conscience.

I caught this on TV under the title TANK FORCE. It's a British WW2 movie made up to look like an American film with Victor Mature as the imported lead and to the film's credit it always convinces as a bigger budgeted production. While scenes of tank warfare are limited to moments at the beginning and end, for the most part this is a fitfully exciting desert adventure with some suspense and incident to see it through.

The film features a mature Mature and a very good Leo Genn as allies who are sent to an Italian prisoner of war camp in North Africa and who vow to escape. The supporting cast is populated by the familiar faces of Anthony Newley, Percy Herbert, George Coulouris, and many others. Once the plot gets going it trundles along quite nicely with the usual run of plot twists, betrayals, and sudden death, and there's even time for a scene of romance or two here and there. Genn in particular is very good as the Brit with the stiff upper lip and the exciting climax rounds things off quite nicely.

In this WW II adventure, five brave Allies endeavor to escape from an Italian POW camp in North Africa. They succeed, but their trials are not over as they must still cross the burning Libyan desert to get safely behind Allied lines. En route they are captured by a Nazi-loving sheik. The sheik takes considerable time to decide the fate of the escapees; in that time, the five manage to escape again. This time they kill their captors.

Though it stars the charismatic Victor Mature, the focus isn't just on him, the other cast members such as Leo Genn, Anthony Newley and Bonar Colleano -who steals the scene as a soldier gone kill mad - get screen time. It's a solid WWII POW escape film with a strong boys own adventure leanings - there's some tense moments and a ton of explosions courtesy of WWII real tanks that blow things up everywhere. Character development is curtailed due to the frantic and a sense of urgency of the escape and adventure where things happen. Superb desert scenery that is depicted as a harsh environment than in a dreamy and romantic adds some grit. Victor Mature is excellent as always, the scene where he holds a dead Luciana Paluzzi and covers her with a blanket is touchingly done.

A British tank unit is captured in the dark days of the North African campaign of the Second World War, including sketchy (by British standards) Victor Mature. He's there because his Jewish wife was killed by Nazis, so he tried to kill Goebbels. Also because they needed an American star for this British production to satisfy Columbia Pictures. Anyway, they escape and wander around Lybia.

Terence Young's movie is a disturbing mixture of standard tropes from POW movies, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, and bits that I have only noticed in THE GREAT ESCAPE. Perhaps they were stories floating around, perhaps the screenwriters (including Young) had read the memoirs, and perhaps Young was drawing on his own wartime experience, as he did with his earlier THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED. The mixture of cliches and oddities gives the movie and interesting but erratic pacing. Certainly the actors, including Leo Genn and Anthony Newly help, as does the brilliant on-site Technicolor camerawork by Ted Moore.

This is a film made here in the UK by Warwick Films,the partnership of Irwin Allen and Cubby Broccoli.They generally specialised in making up market action films in colour with an American star.In this instance it is Victor Mature who at 46 is a bit overage for any army let alone the British tank corp.His rational for being in the British Army is all a bit silly as is the script which at times seems to be a boys own adventure.He has the stoical Leo Genn in support.Anthony Newley,a rising star at the time is the cockney private,normally played by Sam Kydd,and in one of his last films,before his tragic early death,Bonar Celleano.The problem with the film is the star and the script.Otherwise it is entertaining.