Steineded How sad is this?

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Cristi_Ciopron 'El Alamein' is a WW 2 movie, sensationalist and exploitative, unassuming and episodic; British, Germans and Italians fight unsparingly in the African desert, and we recognize the dunes, the hills of gray sand, from the westerns of the '60s, the envy and intrigues cause the temporary removal of Rommel, meanwhile the Germans loose most of their tanks due to the British's perfidy but also abnegation and determination, Rommel is sent back, only to assure the retreat, against the leader's order …. We will also think about the difference between a movie as a popular show, and a movie as a work.We look at war from the headquarters, and from an Italian stronghold. The main ideas are toughness and courage, both amply provided by all the military involved; 'El Alamein' also shows strategies, the British duping the Germans with a phony map of the minefield, the Germans using the Italians to back their retreat. Characteristically, the movie isn't good-natured, but amoral, indifferent to ethics, which makes the plot plausible; the credits boast the support, and possible the approval of the Italian army. The protagonist is lieutenant Giorgio, from one of Folgere division's companies; goodish cast (Hilton, M. Rennie, Ira Furstenberg, Hossein, Salerno). The known commanders, Rommel, Montgomery, Canaris, have supporting roles or cameos. Rommel's military genius is undermined by intrigue and the leader's insanity.The battle scenes seem a bit shapeless (except those of the heroic resistance of the company against the British tanks, while the Germans retreat), as the real aim of the movie are some generic effects: like hell-raising, etc.. This is the main idea of a popular show: not as a work, but as providing a set of generic emotions. It doesn't need a director, but a hack.I enjoyed 'El Alamein'. Loosely structured, accomplished for what it was meant to be, cynical, rhetorical, episodic, sometimes with the sense of hopelessness and despair known from the Italian genre movies, and also the familiar sloppiness, it doesn't relish in filming landscapes, or people. In an American war movie, there's the effect on the audience, and also the scene as thought in itself, as depiction, as insight, as shaped; the Italian genre movies seem to undercut this idea of a scene, right to the effects themselves. So they care less about shape, about work, and more about the popular show. Even very humble American genre movies have this objective structure, this dramatic shape, which the Italian movies don't care for. 'El Alamein' has a plot, but not a dramatic storyline; the Italians didn't rip off a structure, but some topics. Further, the American genre movies also resort to an essentially English lyricism, which is wholly alien to the Italians. The Italian rhetoric may be sentimentalist, but dry, without lyrical depth.(This is a typology; these are ideal types. The European genre movies aren't the only to belong to the 'Judy and Punch' type; not all of them belong to it. Once acknowledged this _ideality of the types, the national criterion will lead one to a further understanding: e. g., the Italian genre movies lack a dramatic structure, but have charm, appeal, zest.)

jt_3d The Battle for El Alamein is a cut above the other Italian WWII movies I've seen. It does have it's flaws though. Poor editing - as our heroic Italian warriors are being overrun by the Brits, everyone is getting ready to die. One guy tenderly caresses a photo of his son and laments that his son will never get to see his father. BOOM BOOM BOOM of explosions and cut to Montgomery casually leaning on on an armored personnel carrier. Only to come back later and find out that they weren't wiped out. What Happened?! There are other annoying cuts but that was the worst.The APCs are indeed M113s but the British did have something called the universal carrier which looks like an open top, cut down version of a 113. I'm willing to give that a pass.At one point we are in the British camp and they have real Sherman tanks, long barreled ones but they are Shermans. The Germans have M48s, I think they are. Both sides are painted tan. But in the final battle we have a line of M48s lined up on the ridge. It wasn't until the Italians said they were being attacked that I realized these were supposed to be British tanks. Most confusing.At any rate, this movie is a cut above the usual Italian war movie and is good enough for a watch. It's something different in that the roles are reversed and the Italians are the heroes and good soldiers and the allies are the faceless mob getting mowed down by the ton. Not that that is a good thing but it's a change of pace.

pmiano100 Lt. Borri (Frederick Stafford) is not so much a martinet as he is a relatively brave man who is ashamed of the Italian Army's accurate reputation for cowardice. Throughout the film, the Italians are excused for their cowardice by showing them as disillusioned and betrayed by their allies, the Germans. Rommel may be anti-Nazi, but he willingly sacrifices Italian troops to protect his own, which he really did. Borri tries to prove to his British foes and to himself that not all Italians are cowards, and winds up mistaking foolhardiness for courage.The Italians are shown as the only soldiers thinking about their families back home, like Borri's brother. This another attempt to show that they are not cowards, just peaceful, ordinary men - as if most Britons and Germans weren't. When Lt. Borri is captured by the British, no other Italian POWs will join him in his escape. They are all glad to be out of the war.In the end, Lt. Borri sacrifices his life in a heroic gesture history shows was ultimately futile. His brother and the others are taken prisoner, proud but no doubt also glad to be out of the war. Borri's brother will live to see his wife and child - if they aren't killed when the Allies invade Italy in 1943. They will spend the next 2 years slowly fighting their way against the Germans to the Alps. Italy will be ravaged in the process. That was the ultimate price Italian families paid for the cowardice of their soldiers, who mostly never expressed any regret.A well-acted, moving, if cheaply made film. However, like "Brave Gente", it is another apologia for the pathetic performance of the Italian Army. This "army" had to use poison gas to beat the Ethiopians.

Michael A. Martinez Italy, along with much of the rest of the world, was into producing lots of cheapo war movies (mostly WW2) during the late-60's. The trend died out with the disillusionment caused by the Vietnam war, as did the popularity of these "gung-ho" war films.Battle of El Alamein isn't such a film. It's probably the most objective and anti-war film made since ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. While the battle sequences are big and exciting, there's nothing glamorous about fighting this kind of war. The soldiers are all shown as equally miserable, barely eeking out an existence in a network of trenches on the sunbaked deserts of North Africa. While it primarily focuses on the heroics of an Italian division (the real-life Italian army was best known as one of the most poorly-led and low-morale armies at the time), the film doesn't get too preachy and while it villifies no one, only showing how some generals (especially the fictional Schwartz) inevitably swung the battle in their enemy's favor due to their impatience and misguided ideals.THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN also does a great job of blending fictional characters with nonfictional ones (like Rommel, Montgomery, Von Thoma, and Stumme) in a nonfictional setting. While the battle itself is abridged and perhaps over-simplified to focus on the Italian division, that's perhaps best for the sake of narrative, character development, and making the emotional impact as strong as possible.Stylistically, the film is done fairly well in late-60's style, with plenty of zoom-lens technique, close-ups, etc. It does drag in spots but only due to the predictability because we KNOW that the axis is gonna lose, but it does a good job keeping the suspense high by showing the Italians taking heavy losses in every engagement. We never know which characters are gonna make it through and which ones aren't.Despite it's flaws, I doubt a better, larger, or more compelling depiction of the battle of El Alamein shall ever be made.