June 1942 El Alamein: Rommel swept towards the River Nile. The fall Egypt and the all important Suez Canal seems inevitable. Italian and German scouts race towards Alexandria. Mussolini has given explicit orders that Italy's forces were to reach the city first. World war two drama about the 1942 North Africa battle at El Alamein between the Allies and the Axis forces. One of these days the Battles of El Alamein, first and second, will get an epic film like The Longest Day, worthy of the sacrifice of the men who fought it. La Battaglia di El Alamein concentrates on the second battle which comes after Claude Auchinleck was replaced as Eighth Army Commander by Bernard Law Montgomery. English actor Michael Rennie whom I never would have chosen to play Montgomery is the only name the English speaking world will recognize from this cast. Funny thing is that a year earlier Rennie played American Fifth Army commander Mark Clark in The Devil's Brigade and Rennie actually even looks a bit like Clark. In fact I'm not sure his voice was used for Montgomery, it didn't sound like him. <br/><br/>The film is thrown together with some stock footage of other and better war films and it tells the story of El Alamein from the Italian point of view. Poor dubbing doesn't help matters either.<br/><br/>The Italians were there at El Alamein, but it seems as though Mussolini sent his troops in without any armored transport, so when Erwin Rommel orders the retreat of the Axis forces, the Italians had no way to get out of harm's way. Not that the Germans really cared because if that was the case they could fight a rear guard action. Some did and some didn't and this story centers on a small group of soldiers who did not.<br/><br/>As a historical side note La Battaglia di El Alamein does serve a useful purpose. But the film is hardly worthy of the story it tells let alone of the scope of the battle itself. It's a dubbed Italian production in lurid color dealing with the Axis defeat by the British and colonials in North Africa. Now, I hate to call it "operatic." But at the very opening, an Italian unit is motoring towards the front, singing a jolly song, the feathers on their caps pluming, when they're fired upon by a British machine gun. You should see them die as they bravely attack the enemy position in mass waves. They're mowed down. But as each soldato is shot, the director (Calvin Jackson Padgett, aka Giorgio Ferroni) has him throw up his arms, execute a few pirouettes, and fling himself dramatically to the sand. <br/><br/>Maybe it's not a cinematic trope. Maybe Italian soldiers actually DO die in a distinctly regional way. Wait, I think I can see it. The British soldier clasps a hand to the wound, looks puzzles, and sinks uncomplainingly. The French die with a xenophobic curse on their lips. The Americans shout out capitalistic slogans as they stagger about, unwilling to yield to the "sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death." Germans fall face-first at attention, Russians with a few last kicks from the hopak. I know I shouldn't be joking about deaths in combat. There's nothing funny about the reality, but the movie is sometimes a joke in itself and more or less invites such treatment.<br/><br/>The movie takes us to the upper echelons and introduces us to Michael Rennie (dubbed) as Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, now taking charge of the British forces and kicking some butt. Once that's established, we visit Rommel drawing lines on a map, complaining that he has barely enough forces to contain the British, and explaining the situation to the real historical figure of General Bastico, whom Rommel in real historical life referred to as "Bombastico." It's a tense situation all right. The Brits have been forced back to the Egyptian border and Alexandria and the Suez Canal are threatened. <br/><br/>At the same time, Rommel's supply pipeline has been practically severed by British air and submarine attacks, so he can't advance any farther – no men, no tanks, no fuel, not even enough water. His men urinated into water-cooled machines. The film correctly states that he was losing 60 percent of his supplies, but it doesn't mention that the Italian naval code had been broken, so the Brits knew when his supply ships would leave Italy for Tripoli. At the battle, Rommel was outnumbered two to one in troops, in tanks, and in the air.<br/><br/>It's not a bad film once you're able to get past the accidental qualities – the dubbing, the often sluggish direction. The story sticks pretty close to actuality in depicting the overall military arrangements. I don't know about the details. All three sides – Italian, German, and British – are shown to have human qualities. No one is a sneering villain. Everyone makes a misjudgment from time to time. The location shooting is adequate. It's a desert all right. The special effects are of the period, and the musical score points us in the direction it invites our emotions to take. The repulse of the British patrol by the Italian Folgore (Lightning) Division of paratroopers is accurately described (except for the absence of tanks). Rommel commended the division for its bravery. The uniforms and helmets of the Italian troops are historically accurate.<br/><br/>Yet there's an element of clumsiness throughout. A British scouting party advances. The pipers are playing their bagpipes. But the sound isn't that of bagpipes but of some sort of electronic horns and the tune sounds more Italian than Scottish. Who chose the voices that were dubbed later? Why are so many of them baritones and so often gravelly? Who decided that a lone man with a submachine gun, trying to hold off an armored car, should kneel out in the open instead of taking cover. And when a man is extremely thirsty and is given half a cupful to drink, why does he try to gulp it down and spill half of the precious water down his chin? What was Calvin Jackson Padgett thinking? Generally the Italians are portrayed as more humane than the Germans.<br/><br/>The Germans aren't exactly cruel but an Italian soldier criticizes them for their willingness to leave a wounded man in front of them on the battlefield. "No sense risking more lives to save one," says the German officer. "How – logical," sneers the Italian. (When John Wayne made the same decision in "Sands of Iwo Jima," the film gave him plaudits for his heroic self-discipline.) <br/><br/>We – the Brits, French, and colonial troops – won the battle of El Alamein, but not because of any weaknesses in the Folgore Division. Vastly outnumbered and out gunned, they fought with everything at hand. The use of Molotov cocktails shown in the movie was not made up. Out of ammunition, some of the survivors retreated to Tunisia, where they fought again, while others surrendered at El Alamein. <br/><br/>The battle, in fact all the battles of North Africa, were slugging matches, with both sides hemmed in by the Mediterranean on one side and the Qatarra depression, impassable to armor, on the south. It's not a bad movie. It's just that some of the elements – the direction, the sound effect and so forth – make it seem worse than it is.
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