Tank Force

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.

"Tank Force" is set in North Africa during WWII. The story begins with an Axis victory and many Brits are captured. Among them is Thatcher (Victor Mature)...a middle-aged American who somehow got into a British unit. I have no idea if Americans served with the British infantry or tank corps during the war, though I know some American volunteers did fly for the RAF. It seems Thatcher is more eager than most to escape the Italian/German POW camp, as some time before he made an attempt on Goebbels' life...and the Germans would love to know his identity. So, this means he had better escape...and soon.

Most of this movie consists of the characters on the run from the Axis...hoping to eventually reach Allied lines. Occasionally, they fight it out with the baddies. Otherwise, that's about all there is to it. It's not bad though not especially deep as well. I also think the Goebbels angle was unnecessary and even detracted a bit from the film, as it's hard imagining anyone in this situation ever having any chance of escaping.

By the way, according to IMDB there is an American edit as well as a British edit for this film and the longer of the two is the British one. The copy I had ran 86 minutes and was the American version.

Also, the 'German' tanks in the film are British and the halftracks are American. This sort of thing doesn't particularly bother me, as nearly all the German vehicles were destroyed in the war and simply weren't available for movies.

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 meaner version of 'The Great Escape' set in North Africa rather than Europe, gathering together for the first time 'Thunderball's director, cameraman and femme fatale (while the supporting cast includes Robert Rietty, who dubbed Largo).

As a Warwick production it inevitably includes unfunny comedy relief from Anthony Newley, (along with Anne Aubrey in her film debut). Most of the Germans are played by Brits, although Bonar Colleano (shortly afterwards killed in a car crash) is ironically dubbed and sporting a bleached crewcut as a Pole.

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.