The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

After his successes in North Africa, Erwin Rommel becomes convinced that Hitler has lost the war. Back in Germany he makes contact with a plot to remove him. When the assassination attempt fails, his name is on the list. Two officers come to his house and give him two options: a trial and punishment for his family, or poison. The subject is not war but objection arriving late. Rommel carried out orders without question for years and only turned once defeat was certain; the film does not ignore that timing, but it does not press on it either. The form opens in a documentary register with real war footage and voice-over. Then it moves into fiction, and the second half is entirely the reckoning inside Germany. The production caused an argument on release. Presenting a German general as an honourable soldier only six years after the war ended drew a reaction in Britain and America, and it was picketed at some cinemas. The source is a book by Desmond Young, a British officer who had faced Rommel in the field, and the film's point of view comes directly from there. Henry Hathaway directs. James Mason plays Rommel and Jessica Tandy his wife. Who it is for: viewers interested in war biography and stories of internal opposition. Who it is not for: anyone who will find the film's approach to Rommel troubling; the narrative keeps him almost entirely outside the system.