I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Absolutely Fantastic

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

(Flash Review)I popped this film on as Rommel is one of the few names I actually know from WWII and a non-American at that. It is the war from Rommel's perspective and talks about how great a tactician he was and how he'd follow the rules of war to the letter. I never really knew he had a part in the assassination attempt on Hitler. A scene more famously known from the movie Vallkarie with Tom Cruise. The film made you feel for him and how his end….was forced. Heavy. Moderately interesting if the topic peeks your interest. It also conveniently tap dances around the Holocaust. Too soon maybe in the early 50's….?

An infuriatingly uneven biopic, Henry Hathaway's The Desert Fox, is so poorly made that one might be tempted to ignore the topic of Erwin Rommel, a brilliant and chivalrous Wehrmacht commander who was more loyal to his men and patriotic toward Germany than a follower of Hitler.The internal conflict is classic, cut from the same basic cloth as Brutus in Caesar.You would think this film would be riveting. It's not. Even though James Mason is magnificently Prussian as Rommel, and there are several other great performances, we're left with a clunky and truncated story of the man George Patton called a "magnificent bastard."That's a great name for Rommel. Born and bred to an ethic of an earlier time, Rommel became an anachronism to the new and improved concept of warfare in World War II.Yet, if you don't know anything about Erwin Rommel--and you're willing to accept that he has been romanticized by history and Hollywood-- this film is something of a good start.

The story of the final years of the respected World War II German general, Erwin Rommel (James Mason).I really didn't know much about Rommel going in to this film, and I don't know if I know all that much more coming out of it. Apparently he was British? And he answered to a silly Hitler that seemed liked a caricature of the real thing? I joke, but it is amusing how movies used to make no attempt whatsoever to get people's nationality correct.Beyond that, the film is actually fairly decent because it operates more or less as a one man show for James Mason. And Mason is a joy to watch (and an even bigger joy to listen to). Not a bad story, either, although I am not sure how openly people were calling Hitler "evil" and trying to overthrow him.

Although a very well crafted and watchable film that stays close to the historical characters and events, without the usual Hollywood treatment of such period war movies - action heroes, love interest, bangs and explosions etc., however there is some strange castings. Notably Manfred, Rommel's son, who looks like a 1950's geeky American college kid. Jessica Tandy, a much underrated actress is superb. Mason could act the pants of any other actor and shines in this film, as indeed he did playing the same role in The Desert Rats. Richard Boone in a rare non-cowboy role makes me wonder why he never prospered in mainstream cinema. For once Hollywood manages to make a factual film without distorting history in order to get bums on seats and sell popcorn.