El Alamein (1957) Poster

(1957)

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7/10
Almost unknown war movie
ecaprarie30 June 2008
At summer, some not so known movies are appearing on television:this is one of them. Actors were not so well-known either, with 3 or 4 exceptions. This movie is about a decisive battle in the northern Africa campaign during World War II.

A group of Italians, from all walks of life and from different parts of Italy, are dispatched to Africa to fight against the British army. They are not well equipped and many of them would prefer to be elsewhere all the time. Conditions on the battlefield are awful, but none the less they keep on fighting, until the overwhelming British forces invite them to surrender. But they had been ordered to resist and, willingly or unwillingly, less than 50 soldiers defend their stronghold, until no one of them can fight any longer; from the very beginning they knew they had very few chances of surviving the attack, but they complied with the orders given to them. Their bravery gained to themselves the respect of the enemy not only because of their military valor, but also because of their human attitude towards a bunch of British prisoners. One of the few survivors, now a wounded POW, is the soldier whose fiancée was an English singer. It is true that this love story sounds a bit awkward in this movie, but it is possible that the authors had a message to convey about war and love.
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6/10
Worth seeing battles, nothing more.
ehv_838 August 2004
The battle of El Alamein has been object of numerous movies. Guido Malatesta's version is one of the strangest and most unknown that I have seen.

Like in so many other movies, the war separates a few lovers. In this case, he, Italian, must join immediately the army and her, Englishwoman, flees of Italy and shelters in Cairo.

Soon he will have to be going to fight to the desert in the north of Africa under horrible conditions. He will have to take difficult decisions under the belief of which he has lost his dear one.

Undoubtedly the central object of the movie is the battle between the Italian command against the Africa German Korps. The love story remains relegated to the background and it's showed in a telegraphic form preventing any empathy from the spectator with the main characters, one wonders if this love story was necessary. While, the combats of the courageous Italian ones against the German tanks appear in a vehement and spectacular way.

For a moment it seems that this could be a movie with realistic connotations that would had favored the final result; but it isn't like that, a made in Hollywood ending waits for us, a forced ending without any visual and/or emotional impact.

There is nothing technically prominent. The photography probably is the aspect most distinguished from the movie. The music passes unnoticed.

Finally I will say that the unknown actors (for me) do it discreetly well.

6 out of 10.
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