Couch Cruiser's 'Valkyrie' - Nazis as Great Guys . . .Just Slow on the Draw!

Yep. Rommel was a good Nazi. Tried to snuff the the Paper Hanger a tad late in the War though. Erwin and the Lads kind of Screwed the pooch and got themselves Luca Brazzi'd for their efforts - pretty thick oak on Al's Big Table and all.

Tom, the Couch Jumper, Cruise made a huge movie about the terrific group of guys **who decided that Hitler had to go . . . kind of like many in the Illinois Legislature getting an inc-ling that Blago is, and has been, a tad milky in the filbert.

Well, Valkyrie is one movie that I can't wait to see . . .when it comes on Cable.

About a year before I was born, Henry Hathaway directed a movie called The Desert Fox* which presented some of the life of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who was part of the Valkyrie Plot to assassinate Old Vienna Al Hitler - the Peter Principle on Steroids.

The Desert Fox covered the plot and substance of the Tom Cruise movie pretty good. In fact, it is safe to say that every male over the age of thirty and most of the women who tolerate us caught the James Mason Rommel story and got a pretty good fix on the tale from Saturday Night at the Movies ( Click My Post Title for more) - 'Are you serious, Englishman?' was the great riposte to the British commando sent to kill Rommel and fails -'Did we get . . .him?' Laughing Nazi,'Are you serious, Englishman?' You gotta love movie Nazis - real ones are pretty pathetic dopes - like the dubious sexual orientation goose-steppers who used to hang out around Marquette Park.

Well, Tom Cruise, who may not be nuts, but plays a great one in real life is all over the place with this Pup of a Picture.

Good Nazis decide to kill Hitler and fail.

Save your dough. Desert Fox will be on AMC or TCM - watch a guy who knows how to do a Nazi. James Mason is Rommel.








*The film starts with Rommel as desert warfare genius and then when he does become ill and is invalided out of North Africa, the Allies regain the initiative and beat his famed Afrika Korps. Rommel is then sent to Western Europe to supervise the defenses on the Atlantic.

There comes a point when Rommel does realize that his Fuehrer is destroying his country and becomes involved in the plot to kill him and overthrow the government. That is what most of the film deals with.

James Mason is a stalwart Rommel a perfect conception of the man they called The Desert Fox. In this mostly male film, Jessica Tandy has little to do but be loyal and supportive as Frau Rommel.

Luther Adler who among other parts he played in his long distinguished career was David Ben-Gurion. He goes the whole opposite way in his portrayal of a ranting and malevolent Adolph Hitler. How a man who took his Jewish heritage as seriously as Luther Adler did, prepare for the role of Hitler is beyond my scope. But then again, there were few actors as good as he.

Though Mason does a fine job given what limited material he had to work from, archives have been opened and we know a whole lot more about Erwin Rommel. Time for another biographical study. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043461/


** 'Listen, Obersturm Gruppenfuehrer, the Al I know loves Dogs and Kids and he's . . .he's dating really . . .fat ankles sure but she's a female woman . . . Look. He's Okay, I'm telling you. We're doing pretty good and two fronts going. If things look bad in July we'll pink slip him.'