Desert Rats, The

They crawled their way across the blazing sands of Africa... to turn disaster into victory!

"The Desert Rats" is a sweeping evocation of the North Africa campaign during World War II. In this expertly filmed adventure, British commando Captain Tammy MacRoberts (Richard Burton) takes charge of a hopelessly outnumbered but stubbornly defiant 9th Australian division at Tobruk in 1941 in their heroic stand against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (James Mason) and his Africa Corps. Their new leader wastes no time in alienating his men by implying they are inferior, but the Australians prove themselves both plucky and amusing. Among the garrison is Tom Bartlett (Robert Newton), MacRoberts's old English teacher at college who is a lowly volunteer and a raging alcoholic. When MacRoberts leads a commando raid behind enemy lines and is captured, he is taken to a German field hospital tent where he meets the infamous Rommel, the two conversing civilly about war in one of the film's most intriguing scenes.