Reeling Backward: "Lion of the Desert" (1981)

So here is a curious thing: an almost three-hour epic starring a lot of big-name Western actors, set against the backdrop of a looming World War as it played out in the wind-blown dunes of North Africa. "Lion of the Desert" is a big-budget spectacle with massive action scenes and a sprawling story.

The similarities to "Lawrence of Arabia" are hard to ignore, and indeed Anthony Quinn is the star and Maurice Jarre supplied the lyrical musical score.

So why have few people even heard of it? Mainly because this historical biopic was shot in Libya and financed by dictator Muammar Gaddafi. It's essentially a love poem to Omar Mukhtar, an early Libyan freedom fighter, who waged guerrilla warfare on the Italians for 22 years before being captured and hanged in 1931. A lot of military history was made during the conflict, including the first use of tanks in the desert -- presaging Rommel's deployment of the metal beasts later on.

The film is rather uneven, directed by Syrian filmmaker Moustapha Akkad, best known for producing the early "Halloween" films. The battle scenes seem to go on and on, lacking a great deal of visceral impact. The quieter scenes with Mukhtar imparting his wisdom to younger men and children hold the movie's true power.

Mukhtar was a simple Islamic teacher who nevertheless had a brilliant mind for military tactics. He fought the Italians until well into his 70s, and Quinn expresses the grace and intelligence of the man in an understated, subtle performance.

Perhaps the film's high point is when some of his fellow Bedouins express a desire to wreak the same sort of vengeance upon the Italians as they have done to their people, including the wanton murder of women and children. "They are not our teachers," Mukhtar intones quietly, yet with iron behind his words.

Perhaps the most revelatory thing about this movie for me was the atrocities committed by the Italians in Libya, which was their colony for much of the early part of the 20th century. Even though they were part of the Axis, we tend to think of the Italians as the least bad part of an evil triad. So to see Italian soldiers gunning down kids and such is quite a thing.

Oliver Reed plays General Rodolfo Graziani, sent by Mussolini himself to quiet the rebellion in Africa. Reed is delicious as a dedicated officer who relishes defeating his enemies, but he does so out of a sense of reaching for military glory rather than malevolence.

(Incidentally, Steiger has two powerful scenes as Mussolini. Despite a total lack of physical resemblance, he captures the man's bombasity and flamboyance. He truly believed he was raising the ancient Roman Empire back to its former heights.)

The story plays out as essentially a cat-and-mouse game between the two men, with Graziani resorting to ever more extreme measures to overcome the stubborn resistance led by Mukhtar. The latter foils his foe again and again, until his time runs out.

John Gielgud has a small part as El Gariani, an Arab turncoat and old friend of Mukhtar's, who tries unsuccessfully to persuade him to accept peace. It's part of an unfortunate trend in the film for Arabs to be played by Europeans.

Quinn of course was a naturalized American of Mexican and Irish descent. Greek actress Irene Papas plays a distraught mother who watches her children die by turns. Scotsman Andrew Keir plays the palest Bedouin who ever lived.

 Raf Vallone has a meaty role as an Italian colonel who seeks to make piece with Mukhtar, but is used as a pawn by Graziani. He plays one of just a handful of sympathetic Italians in the film, who bear witness to their countrymen's barbarism and speak out against it.

"Lion of the Desert" is more interesting as a cinematic artifact than the actual movie itself. But it's engaging enough and shines a light on an important historical figure few people west of Casablanca have heard about.

Reeling Backward: "Attack on the Iron Coast" (1968)

A laughably bad World War II picture from 1968, "Attack on the Iron Coast" registers as nearly a parody of the genre, replete with hammy acting and silly action scenes. The director, Paul Wendkos, made his name with "Gidget" and its myriad sequels, and is mostly known for his television work. After making this film starring Lloyd Bridges -- another TV vet with "Sea Hunt" -- Wendkos would go on to direct the pilot of "Hawaii Five-O" and a couple of its first-season episodes.

I'd say his talent found its perfect match.

Bridges plays Jamie Wilson, a Canadian major who concocts a hare-brained scheme called Mad Dog to ram a British destroyer into the German-held port of La Plagé. The Nazi regime is using the French dry dock to repair its battleships with great efficiency, adding to the massive naval losses of Allied ships. Wilson wants to load a ship up with explosives and blow the whole thing to smithereens.

The story essentially consists of two parts: the hard-charging Wilson trying to convince his conservative British cohorts to OK the mission, and then the mission itself with its greatest critic forced to command the expedition. Andrew keir plays Captain Owen Franklin, who haughtily refuses to have anything to do with Mad Dog at least a half-dozen times, but comes to be its greatest advocate -- even going so far as to ignore an order from high command to abort the mission.

Keir gives a straightforward performance, as unctuousness gives way to stoic English stiff upper lip in the heat of battle.

Interestingly, Franklin is clearly portrayed as being a seasoned older officer, while Wilson is supposed to be the young gun continually challenging his elders with his brash tactics. In fact, the gray-bearded Keir was a 42-year-old youngster when this movie came out, while Bridges was 55 (but looked about 38).

Mad Dog may sound like Hollywood claptrap, but it was actually based on a real raid on St. Nazaire in March 1942 that succeeded using almost exactly the same tactics depicted in the movie. It' a wild enough story that one wonders why the studio didn't simply do a historically accurate story using the names of the real combatants, along the lines of "A Bridge Too Far."

My guess is the producers felt an urge to load up the story with the usual war-movie cliches -- two commanders in conflict, a romance running as sidebar (Wilson's wife is played by Sue Wilson), and a heroically implausible sacrifice by the main character at the end.

The latter occurs when Wilson, buried in wreckage aboard the ship's bridge, struggles to reach the detonation clock. The wires have been severed in the collision with the dry dock gate. A German soldier shoots Wilson, but in his dying swoon he manages to contact the wires and the whole thing goes boom.

Never mind that earlier Franklin had specifically told Wilson (and thereby the audience) that the device was self-contained so it would still detonate if the ship was damaged. And yet two thin little copper wires are left running exposed to the bridge floor. Ridiculous.

The portrayal of the Nazi commanders is knee-slapping goofy. Walter Gotell plays Van Horst, who prefers to eat and drink and debauch rather than pay attention to his duties guarding the coast. When we first meet the German officers, they're literally watching a skin flick while gorging themselves, and cannot even tear their eyes away from the lascivious images of women undressing to duly respond to reports of a strange ship approaching.

"Attack on the Iron Coast" has nothing going for it. The raid upon which it was based may have been a rousing military success, but as war films go the fictional version is totally fubar.

1 stars out of four