One of my all time favorites.

best movie i've ever seen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Fritz Lang made this film in 1941, but the two versions are very different and compliment each other - none will spoil the other. Peter O'Toole's version is more actionlike, the dialogue is very much reduced and replaced by more credible action, while in the Fritz Lang version the dialogue is all, and there are many interesting conversations. Above all, the original film stresses the actual theme of the book, which is British sportsmanship, while this tends to get lost in the Peter O'Toole version. However, Peter is a much more suitable actor for the role than Walter Pidgeon, who is not quite convincing and certainly no hero. Peter makes a hero with terrible ordeals to go thorugh, while Walter is rather unscathed throughout. Peter is more convincing as an absolute gentleman, you can judge him for what he is just by his appearance, while Walter Pidgeon is a bit overgrown in maturity almost lijke a middle aged bore - his opponent George Sanders actually outshines him. Peter is also assisted by the incomparable Alastair Sim for his uncle, who still in his old age remains perfectly irresistible. Walter Pidgeon's uncle you forget at once.So although Fritz Lang's film has a better script, is more literary and more brilliantly composed, while Peter's suffers from bad TV quality and is action for large audiences, Peter's version is more efficient and credible, realistic and dramatic. It's a great story, who wouldn't have dreamed of assassinating Hitler in time if he had the chance, and no matter how much you depart from the original story, you can't make a bad film on it.

Through long practice, Clive Donner has mastered the art of making pictures unmistakable for anything but British television - cramped, carelessly framed shots; anachronistic hairdressing and set decoration; the cheapest possible film stock; music disinterred from a muzak burial ground; scenes every single one of which was obviously the first take; editing apparently committed with a greasy boning knife by a whimsical butcher. Yet for all its brownish greens, awkward flashbacks and 70s sideburns, the WWII thriller ROGUE MALE is that rarest of items, a badly directed good movie. It's Frederic Raphael, the most pretentiously named writer since Goldsworthy Dickinson, who bears primary responsibility for the film's success. He keeps things fairly rushing along, always ready with a clever quip for Peter O'Toole to flip from the tip of his furred tongue.Within five minutes, O'Toole at his most wan and inebriated is tortured by Michael Byrne, the same Nazi who twenty years later was hurled off a cliff by Harrison Ford. Here, he and O'Toole insult each other's public school before O'Toole is hurled off a cliff onto a shotgunned pig. Then O'Toole, probably of necessity, is allowed to abandon vertical ambulation, crawling and slithering through much of the movie. It's a good start to a really fun little spy hunter.This is the O'Toole of legend, the one who falls off stages reciting sonnets backward, the famous wastrel, the untamed actor so charming and well-equipped that even when he forgets his line, can't walk without a stagger, or drifts through entire scenes with the most bleary of stares, delivers a thoroughly entertaining and credible performance. When the Nazis stuff a dead cat into his burrow, he recites Byron to it. How many actors could pull that off, drunk or sober?Incidentally, his character's name in this film is Robert Hunter, not Thorndyke, which title IMDb curiously bestows upon him. (In the novel the character is unnamed, and in Fritz Lang's previous adaptation MAN HUNT he's Alan Thorndike with an i. Hmm.)

Rogue Male is a superior chase film with a superb characterization by Peter O'Toole, who occupies about 80% of the screen time. Absolutely top-notch direction, cinematography, and editing and a respectable, not overlong, 103 minute running time. It's a pity the DVDs have used such deteriorated source material. The movie, if in perfect condition would be worth 10/10, as it is among the very best, however, as it is it is only worth about 7/10 because of the deterioration of the print.If you get a chance to see Rogue Male, please do as it is worth it, even with the poor print.

I first saw this on TV back in the mid 70's and it was definitely a story of the time, when WW2 was still in the forefront of many peoples minds. Maybe not to the more modern taste, I've always enjoyed this film. It has a feel of the Thirty Nine Steps about it.Just before the outbreak of WW2, Peter O'Tooles character fails in his revenge assassination attempt on Hitler. With the help of a sympathetic German, and English sailors, he escapes back to Britain and has to go on the run from the British and Nazi authorities who are both after him to return to Germany to answer for his "crime". He goes into hiding in the country, drawing on his hunting experience, and waits to the outbreak of war when his assassination attempt is looked on in a completely different light by the British, who now see him as a potential asset.