Tobruk (1967) on Netflix
Rommel's Afrika Korps is ninety miles from Suez and low on fuel. Canadian Donald Craig, a Vichy prisoner, must guide British commandos across the Sahara to destroy Tobruk's fuel dumps.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.4/104,036 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
In September 1942, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps has pushed the Allies into Egypt and stands ninety miles from the Suez Canal, though its fuel is running short. The British approve a plan to destroy the German fuel bunkers at Tobruk before a scheduled amphibious landing and bombing raid. Its author, Canadian Major Donald Craig, is a prisoner of the Vichy French in Algiers when German-speaking commandos seize him from a prison ship. Their leader, Captain Bergman, commands the Special Identification Group, German-born Jews serving under the British. At Kufra, Colonel Harker of the Long Range Desert Group gives the column eight days to cross 800 miles of Sahara disguised as prisoners of war with Bergman's men posing as German guards. Craig doubts the plan and distrust runs both ways.
Cast
- Heidy Huntas Cheryl Portman
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tobruk (1967)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film is a fictionalized version of Operation Agreement, the real British attacks on Italian and German forces at Tobruk, but it shows the operation succeeding, in reality it was a disastrous failure.
- Leo Gordon wrote himself the role of Sergeant Major Tyne, but producer Gene Corman would let him act only if the script was changed so Tyne died. Gordon instead played Krug, who lived.
- Rock Hudson, then one of the biggest stars in the world, was unhappy at Universal and about to leave it; producer Gene Corman showed him the script, Hudson liked it, and Corman got the film financed at Universal, which wanted to keep Hudson.
- Laurence Harvey was originally set to play Major Craig, and Dirk Bogarde was offered the part of Colonel Harker but turned it down.
- The German armor on screen was faked: the Sd.Kfz. 7 halftracks are American M3s with altered bodies, and the tanks in the Italian column are American M48 Pattons.
- The 1971 film Raid on Rommel, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Richard Burton, reused extensive combat footage from Tobruk and told a very similar story of commandos raiding Afrika Korps supply bases.
- Producer Gene Corman wanted to shoot in North Africa with studio work in England, but Universal insisted on America, unwilling to film in Europe again after A Man Could Get Killed went over budget.
