''The Rats of Tobruk'' is a 1944 Australian film directed by Charles Chauvel. An abridged version was released in the United States in 1951 as ''The Fighting Rats of Tobruk''. The film follows three drover friends who enlist in the Australian Army together during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Their story is based on the

siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...

of the

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

n city of

Tobruk Tobruk or Tobruck (; grc, Ἀντίπυργος, ''Antipyrgos''; la, Antipyrgus; it, Tobruch; ar, طبرق, Tubruq ''Ṭubruq''; also transliterated as ''Tobruch'' and ''Tubruk'') is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near ...

in North Africa by

Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...

Afrika Korps The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (, }; DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the ...

. The largely Australian defenders held the city for 250 days before being relieved by British forces.

Plot

Three friends are droving cattle in Australia in 1939: the restless Bluey Donkin, easy-going Milo Trent and English Peter Linton, who is in the country on a working holiday. Squatter's daughter Kate Carmody is in love with Bluey but he refuses to be tied down to any one woman. War breaks out and the three men enlist in the Australian army and are assigned to the 9th Division. They ship out to Africa. After early successes against the Italian army, the army is besieged in Tobruk. In between attacks, the men have comic encounters with a barber and Peter falls for a nurse, Sister Mary, after being wounded. There are several subsequent attacks in which all three soldiers are wounded. Peter Linton is killed but the others manage to repel the Germans. Bluey and Milo are then transferred to

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

, where Bluey is injured and Milo killed by a sniper. Bluey manages to kill the sniper and returns to Australia, where he is reunited with Kate.

Cast

* Grant Taylor as Bluey Donkin *

Peter Finch Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 191614 January 1977) was an English-Australian actor of theatre, film and radio. Born in London, he emigrated to Australia as a teenager and was raised in Sydney, where he worked in vaudeville ...

as Peter Linton * Chips Rafferty as Milo Trent *

George Wallace George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist a ...

as the barber of Tobruk *Pauline Garrick as Kate Carmody *Mary Gay as Sister Mary Ellis *

Joe Valli Joseph George McParlane (also spelled McFarlane and McPharlane; 13 August 1885 – 29 May 1967), known as Joe Valli, was a Scottish-Australian actor who worked in vaudeville and films. He had a long-running vaudeville partnership with Pat Hanna as ...

as the Northumberland Fusilier *John Sherwood *

Walter Pym Walter Ruthven Pym (22 June 1856 – 2 March 1908) was an English colonial bishop at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Biography Walter Pym was born in Great Chesterford in 1856. The son of Alexander Pym and Eliza El ...

*Norman Blackler *Gilbert Ellis *Robert Carlyle *Joe Anderson *Toni Villa as Japanese soldier *Edward Esau as British officer who falls asleep in barber's chair

Production

Development

Chauvel made the film as a follow up to his enormously popular ''

Forty Thousand Horsemen ''Forty Thousand Horsemen'' (aka ''40,000 Horsemen'') is a 1940 Australian war film directed by Charles Chauvel. The film tells the story of the Australian Light Horse (mounted rifleman as distinct from cavalry) which operated in the desert at t ...

'' (1940). Like that movie, it follows three friends overseas to war, and starred Grant Taylor and Chips Rafferty. In September 1941 Chauvel announced his follow up movie would have the background of the wool industry. That seemed to change and in November 1942 Chauvel announced plans to make a film about the Rats of Tobruk. He spent a year researching and writing, and securing government cooperation. In July 1943 ''Variety'' reported Charles Munro would help finance two films of Chauvel, ''Rats of Tobruk'' and ''Fuzzy-wuzzies''. Financing was obtained from

Hoyts The Hoyts Group of companies in Australia and New Zealand includes Hoyts Cinemas and Val Morgan. Hoyts operates more than 450 cinema screens and 55,000 seats, making it Australia's second largest movie exhibitor after Event Hospita ...

, RKO-Radio, and Commonwealth Film Laboratories. Production of the movie was even announced in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Mary Gay was working as a clerk in a department store when discovered in a talent quest and cast in the role of the nurse who romances Peter Finch.

Shooting

Shooting took place in late 1943. Taylor, Rafferty and Finch were all serving in the Australian army and played their parts on leave. A set representing the town of Tobruk was constructed in a field near Camden. Underground firing posts and dugouts were reconstructed in the studio of Commonwealth Film Laboratories. The Cronulla sandhills stood in for the African desert, and battle scenes were shot there at nighttime. Watson's Bay was used to shoot scenes of Australian soldiers embarking by boat. The New Guinea sequences were shot at

Lamington Plateau The Lamington National Park is a national park, lying on the Lamington Plateau of the McPherson Range on the Queensland/New South Wales border in Australia. From Southport on the Gold Coast the park is to the southwest and Brisbane is north. T ...

, near the crash site of the 1937 Stinson plane. (That wreck had been discovered by Bernard O'Reilly who inspired Chauvel's later film, ''

Sons of Matthew ''Sons of Matthew'' is a 1949 Australian film directed and produced and co-written by Charles Chauvel. The film was shot in 1947 on location in Queensland, Australia, and the studio sequences in Sydney. ''Sons of Matthew'' took 18 months to comp ...

''.) Army photographers also shot real-life footage in Papua for use in the movie. Filipino boxer Tony Villa plays the Japanese soldier who fights Grant Taylor at the end. Captured German and Italian weaponry was used throughout filming. In 1943, the 3rd Army Tank Battalion was equipped with a squadron of Australian built Sentinel AC1 tanks which had been modified to resemble German tanks. The army provided advisers who had served in Tobruk. Filming ended in June 1944.

Reception

Critical

The film received mixed reviews. The critic from the ''Argus'' thought it was better than ''Forty Thousand Horsemen'' but the one from the ''

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' claimed that:

The fictional background is dull and uninventive, the characterisation often stilted and self-consciously patterned to arbitrary types, and the editing loose and jumpy as the story which, in its amateurish nature, is a dead-weight on the entire production. The chief merits of the film, which was made in the face of great difficulties that may explain, but do not excuse, its weaknesses for a commercial market, are its reconstruction of Tobruk and the fidelity of its action scenes to historic fact. Yet, while these action scenes are truthful, their interpretation by the aim leaves their outlines and purposes vague so that an audience has to guess too much about who's fighting who and what the strategy is.

''Filmink'' magazine later wrote "I’m not quite sure what Taylor did during his war service, but it was having its impact already by the time of this film – Taylor looks puffier, more balder, less enthusiastic. He’s still pretty good, just not as good as in Horseman – like the film itself really, which was a commercial disappointment."

Box office

Early box office response was encouraging but the movie was not as popular as ''

''.

US Release

It was not released in the US until 1951. The critic from ''The New York Times'' called the movie "one of the most harrowing bores in years from anywhere... most of the eighty five minutes is crawling agony... it's a toss up as to which is more primeval, Mr Chauvel's direction or the acting of the entire cast.""THE SCREEN: FOUR FILMS HAVE PREMIERES HERE: Danny Kaye 'On the Riviera,' With Gene Tierney, Arrives at the Roxy Theatre 'Smuggler's Island' at Rivoli-- Paramount Showing 'Sealed Cargo'--'Tobruk' at City at the Paramount at the Rivoli at the City Theatre" by BOSLEY CROWTHER. ''New York Times'' 24 May 1951: 57.

References

External links

The Rats of Tobruk
at the

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

*
The Rats of Tobruk
at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...

US Trailer
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Original treatment
at

National Archives of Australia The National Archives of Australia (NAA), formerly known as the Commonwealth Archives Office and Australian Archives, is an Australian Government agency that serves as the national archives of the nation. It collects, preserves and encourages ...

''The Rats of Tobruk''
at Oz Movies
Review of film
at ''Variety''
Documentary footage of shooting in New Guinea the concluding scenes for Mr Charles Chauvel's film Rats of Tobruk
at

Australian War Memorial The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in wars involving the Commonwealth of Australia and some conflicts involving pe ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rats of Tobruk, The 1944 films 1940s war drama films Australian war drama films Australian World War II propaganda films North African campaign films Films directed by Charles Chauvel Films set in Libya Films set in Papua New Guinea Siege films Films set in 1939 Films set in 1941 Films set in 1942 Australian black-and-white films 1944 drama films 1940s Australian films