''Desert Victory'' is a 1943 film produced by the British Ministry of Information, documenting the Allies' North African campaign against Field Marshal

Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (; 15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), popularly known as The Desert Fox (, ), was a German '' Generalfeldmarschall'' (field marshal) during World War II. He served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of ...

and the

Afrika Korps The German Africa Corps (, ; DAK), commonly known as Afrika Korps, 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 Africa ...

. This documentary traces the struggle between General

and

Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army (in countries without the rank of Generalissimo), and as such, few persons a ...

Bernard Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and the ...

, from German and Italian defeats at

El Alamein El Alamein (, ) is a town in the northern Matrouh Governorate of Egypt. Located on the Mediterranean Sea, it lies west of Alexandria and northwest of Cairo. The town is located on the site of the ancient city Antiphrai which was built by th ...

to Tripoli. The film was produced by David MacDonald and directed by Roy Boulting who also directed '' Tunisian Victory'' and '' Burma Victory''. Like the famous "

Why We Fight ''Why We Fight'' is a series of seven propaganda films produced by the US Department of War from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. It was originally written for American soldiers to help them understand why the United States was involved in the ...

" series of films by

Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behind Frank Capra filmography#Films that won Academy Award ...

, ''Desert Victory'' relies heavily on captured German newsreel footage. Many of the most famous sequences in the film have been excerpted and appear with frequency in

History Channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

and A&E productions. The film won a special

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

in 1943 and the 1951 film '' The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel'' took sections of the film for its battle footage. An early screening in the U.S., at New York's Museum of Modern Art, was for its "The Documentary Film" series, lasting from January through May 1946. This film was shown on April 1-2-3-4, and the Museum offered high praise: "Before the American documentary had quite learned how to adapt itself to wartime uses, this fine record of the triumphant 1300 mile chase of Rommel's Afrika Korps from El Alamein to Tripoli, by the British 8th Army, came along to celebrate a victory, mark a turning point of the war, and spur on our own official film-makers to report back from the many fronts the thrilling facts of Allied combat. Exceptionally lucid as to the terrain and the action involved, the film also brought home with a shock to the average civilian the reality, the human element, of battle. It was, perhaps, the best and earliest vindication of the documentary film as the powerfully educational and inspiring force it can be."

Reception

Critic

James Agee James Rufus Agee ( ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for ''Time'', he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. His autob ...

writing in '' The Nation'' in 1943 lauded the film: "''Desert Victory'' is the first completely admirable combat film... It is so good, and so simply good, that it is hard to do more than urge that you see it. In the camera work, the cutting, the music and sound, the commentary, it is a clean, simple demonstration that creative imagination is the only possible substitute for the plainest sort of good sense—and is, after all, merely an intensification of good sense to the point of incandescence."

Leslie Halliwell Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...

gave it four of four stars, stating simply, "Classic war documentary."

References

External links

* * 1943 films 1943 war films 1943 documentary films British documentary films British World War II propaganda films Black-and-white documentary films 1940s English-language films Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners Films directed by Roy Boulting Films scored by William Alwyn 20th Century Fox films British black-and-white films English-language documentary films English-language war films {{1940s-UK-film-stub

Reception

See also

References

External links