The Desert Fox is a 1951 black and white biopic from 20th Century Fox on Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the final stages of World War II. It starred James Mason in the title role, directed by Henry Hathaway, and is based on Rommel's book: The Desert Fox by Brigadier Desmond Young, who served in the British Indian Army in North Africa.
The film plays an important role in the creation of Rommel's myth, the view that Rommel was a brilliant, brilliant commander, opposed Nazi policy and became a victim of the Third Reich because of his (now disputed) participation in the July 20 plot against Adolf Hitler.
Video The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel
Plot
The film begins with a pre-credit sequence describing Operation Flipper, a British commando attack whose purpose is to kill Rommel. Failed.
After the credits, the story was introduced by the narrator Michael Rennie, who later made Lieutenant Colonel Desmond Young, who plays himself in the film. Young was arrested and met Rommel briefly as a prisoner of war; he declared that Rommel was not only his enemy at that time, but the enemy of civilization, and made it his mission after the war to discover what really happened to Rommel during his last years of life - at the time Young wrote his letter. book, it is believed that Rommel had died as a result of his injuries when an Allied fighter fired at his staff car.
The film retreated into the period 1941-42, when Britain was preparing to strike back Egypt, directed by General Bernard Montgomery: Germany was defeated at El Alamein in 1942. The situation got worse when Rommel was ordered by Adolf Hitler (Luther Adler). ) to stand quickly and not backward, even in the face of the extraordinary superiority of the Allies to men and supplies, but retreats are permissible. Rommel became increasingly disillusioned with Hitler after his request to evacuate his men was dismissed. A sick Rommel was sent back to Germany to recuperate while his beloved African Corps were ridden back across North Africa and destroyed.
Rommel was approached while at the hospital by an old family friend, Dr. Karl StrÃÆ'¶lin (Cedric Hardwicke), with a request that he join a group that planned to overthrow Hitler. Rommel was very hesitant. StrÃÆ'¶lin departs and soon after that eludes a Gestapo agent assigned to watch over him.
Rommel was assigned to defend the Atlantic Wall against the anticipated Allied invasion, though he knew the "wall" offered little protection. When the Allies landed in France on June 6, 1944, he and his superior, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt (Leo G. Carroll), were defective by Hitler's astrological belief that it was a diversion, with a real invasion to come to the Dover Strait. As a result, they were denied urgent reinforcements, allowing the Allies to secure a foothold. This is the last straw. Rommel joins the conspiracy. However, when she tries to recruit Rundstedt, the latter reason herself by stating she is too old for such things, but Rommel's wishes well, saying that she will replace him with the morning. (We later heard that Rommel was not appointed as his successor.)
The plan is moved to remove Hitler. Rommel finally insisted on meeting Hitler personally in an attempt to persuade him to see the reason. Hitler ignored Rommel's bleak prediction of the war, shouting that the magical weapons under construction would change the tide. Shortly after, Rommel was badly injured when his car was fired upon by Allied planes. Thus, he was recovering at the hospital when, on July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Eduard Franz) planted a bomb in Hitler's conference room. It's gone, but FÃÆ'¼hrer persisted. Thousands of suspects were tracked and executed. The official silence surrounded Rommel.
General Wilhelm Burgdorf (Everett Sloane) was sent by Hitler to present Rommel with a firm choice: accused of betrayal, whose punishment would torture death by doing a garrot, or committing suicide without pain. It will be announced that he has died of previous injuries, he will receive a hero's funeral, his fame is preserved and Hitler's regime will avoid scandal. Initially Rommel chose to defend himself in the People's Court, but when Burgdorf hinted that Rommel's family would suffer from his decision, he decided to commit suicide to save them. He had the option of receiving the painless medicine that Burgdorf had brought, and he had to do it before the night. He took leave from his wife Lucie (Jessica Tandy), his aide-de-camp (Richard Boone) and his son Manfred (who suspects nothing is wrong), and departed with Burgdorf. When the car is driven away, the film ends with Desmond Young's speculation about Rommel's last thought, with a brief visual flash of his previous victory in the Western Desert Campaign from Tobruk to El Alamein, and Rommel's last close-up act standing in his tank gun tower as the head of his panzer troops in Africa, with a voice award pronounced in a postwar speech in front of Parliament by the "German Nazi enemy" Winston Churchill, praised the famous Desert Fox.
Maps The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel
Cast
Roles in Rommel myth
The film plays an important role in Rommel's myth, the view that Field Marshal is a brilliant, apolitical commander and victim of the Third Reich for his (now disputed) participation in the July 20 plot against Adolf Hitler. The myth was created with Rommel's participation as a component of Nazi propaganda to praise the Wehrmacht and instill optimism in German society. Beginning in 1941, it was taken and disseminated in the West by the British press as they sought to explain his inability to defeat the Axis troops in North Africa. After the war, the Western Allies, and especially the British, described Rommel as "good German" and "our friend Rommel". His reputation for a clean war was used for the benefit of West German weapons and the reconciliation between former enemies - Britain and the United States on the one hand and the new Federal Republic on the other.
They describe Rommel in a sympathetic way, as a loyal and humane soldier as well as a staunch opponent of Hitler's policies. The film plays Rommel's disputed role in a conspiracy against Hitler, while ignoring Rommel's early links with the dictator. The critical and public reception in the United States was silenced, but the film was a success in England, along with the lesser known 1953 film The Desert Rats, where Mason continued his role as Rommel.
This film proves one of the perfect tools for reconciliation among former enemies. British popular history focuses on reconstructing the battle at the war theater, almost from the exclusion of all others. The Desert Fox helps create the image of the German Army that will be accepted by the British public. The film received almost universal positive reviews in Britain, while protests in theaters played in Vienna and Milan. Basil Liddell Hart, who later edited the war-time of Rommel's 1953 book The Rommel Papers, watched a movie between a group of high-ranking British officers and reportedly being "surprised".
References
Quote
Bibliography
- Caddick-Adams, Peter (2012). Monty and Rommel: Parallel Life . New York, NY: The Overlook Press. ISBNÃ, 9781590207253 Ã,
- Chambers, Madeline (2012). "The Devil's General? German film attempts to unravel Rommel's myth". Reuters . Retrieved Feb 8 2016
- Major, Patrick (2008). " ' Our Friend Rommel': Wehrmacht as 'The Worthy Enemy' in Popular Postwar British Culture". German history . Oxford University Press. 26 (4): 520-535. doi: 10.1093/gerhis/ghn049. Ã,
External links
- Fox Desert: Rommel Story on IMDb
- The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel in the TCM Film Database
- The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel at AllMovie
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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