Attentato ai Tre Grandi (Desert Commandos)

Italian war movies usually are about a small group of commandos on a special mission behind enemy lines, and this one is no exception. But it's based on historic facts and the 'heroes' are Germans. Five German commandos are dropped in the Sahara. Their mission: assassinate Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin (or De Gaulle, there's some confusion about this in the movie too) during a conference held in Casablanca. They're helped by an Arab woman, and chased by Allied soldiers. And of course there's a traitor among them.

The Germans are stereotyped and usually presented as opposites (the loyal Nazi versus the intellectual who had Jewish friends before the war, etc.), but at least they're depicted as human beings looking forward to the end of the war. Being a co-production with France and Germany, the production boasted with a slightly bigger budget and could actually be shot in Morocco, instead of Sicily of Sardinia. Some of the Germans are actually played by a Germans. The other actors (among them Italian based American Ken Clark and Italian actor Renato Rossini) look German enough for the job. French actress Jeanne Valérie, on the other hand, isn't very convincing as the Arab woman guiding them to Casablanca.

The first half of the movie is rather slow, offering a seemingly endless series of scenes with the men marching through the desert, having a few conversations for good measure. There are a few tension-filled scenes involving mines and nomads (resulting in a funny chase scene with dromedaries), but none of these scenes is able to cause any real shakes. But then the film picks up in the final third, with a few unexpected plot twists and crisply edited action scenes. We know of course from the history books that the mission failed, but the finale is elegantly staged and quite amusing. I won't give it away.

Notes:

* The French title is: Les Chiens verts du Desert; the German title is: Fünf gegen Casablanca

* You can read a Dutch language review of this movie here.

Aanraders in overeenkomstige genres, volgens Boobytrap:
- The Guns of Navarone (oorlog / avontuur : 8)
- Operation Crossbow (oorlog / avontuur : 7.5)
- The Wild Geese (oorlog / avontuur : 7)
- Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut) (oorlog / avontuur : 7)
- Von Ryan's Express (oorlog / avontuur : 7)

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Hoe beoordeelt Boobytrap categorie avontuur eigenlijk? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10