MovieChat Forums > Tobruk (1967) Discussion > Goofs

Goofs

posted 17 years ago by rex-116
9 replies | jump to latest

When the spy Portman promises a Muslim Holy War, he uses a word that sounds like "jidah" or "jedda" when of course he meant "jihad."

Someone who knows how to edit the IMDb pages should include a Goofs page. Right now that link doesn't work.

One thing that impressed me about Tobruk was that unlike most films of this genre where foreigners all speak heavily-accented English to each other, the French people spoke French, the Italians spoke Italian, the Germans spoke German, and as far as I know the Arabs spoke Arabic. Special compliments to George Peppard and Rock Hudson: the scenes where they spoke Italian and German sounded very authentic.

[–] IronBrig4 17 years ago

One should also add that the wrong tanks are used. I saw very few Panzers, and many US tanks from the 60s.

[–] gammalord 17 years ago

I've watched hundreds of war films, mostly american and a few european movies. America movie studio's don't have any authentic armor/vehicles to utilize. The easiest and or cheapest way is to get an american army unit to volunteer to use it's vehicles for the film. As long as the movie put's the american army in a good light, the studio usually got the help.

Example: In the Day the Earth Stood Still. The U.S. Army declined to assist the production. So a national guard unit was utilized. That's why the tanks in the movie are WW2 M-24 light tanks. Instead of the M-46 Patton main battle tank of the early 1950's.
Sometimes a movie company will make a few cosmetic changes to an american tank to make it look more german.

The worst example was the 1956 WW2 film Attack. Where a couple of old M-3/M-5 light tanks are painted black and have a ridiculously long barrel welded to it's tiny turret.
The best are the Tiger tanks from either the 1970 Kelly's Hero's. Or 1998's Saving Private Ryan. These were made by modifing Russian T-34 tanks. The hull and turrets are spot on. Thought the track system is obviously still a T-34's.

In the last twenty years with refurbished tanks and other vehicles from WW2, there may be some appearances in future war movies.
And with the increase use of quality CGI that increases the ability to look like the real thing. We might someday see a good war movie about WW2 with authentic equipment.
But I believe the heyday of WW2 films is over. At least for the time being. The future is up in the air.

While I have an eye for the real deal when it comes to equipment. And appreciate when it's used. What I appreciate more is when soldiers of any age, or any side are potrayed as they were. Not cookie cutter Nazis or Patriotic zelots. Or hapless boobs who don't have a clue about being soldiers. Unless in that particular cercumstance they where indeed Nazi's,Zelots, or Boobs!

[–] heywood2001 17 years ago

Yeah! It is indeed makes one cringe when a M-7 Priest is gussied up to look like
a German Panzer.

In Battle of Britain, the Harry Saltzman 1969 film, a brief pre-lude to
main movie showing the fall of France with German panzers rolling into Dunkirk,
M-7 Priests were gussied up with a long barrel to look ostensibly like a tank destroyer such as a Marder II, except that Marder II's hadn't even come about until after Operation Barbarossa in 1941 as a stop gap solution to combat the T-34/76's that were a big surprise to the Germans at the time.

But back to the movie. So there were no long barrled tank destroyers in 1940.
The best stretch is that its supposed to be a Panzerjäger I with a 47mm Czech
gun which did serve in the Battle for France.

The main star of that movie was the planes which were authentic.

Anyway, digressing there, Tobruk was a reasonable Docu-Fiction depiction of
North Africa with faults but no outright depictions of all German soldiers as
sieg heiling automatons.

For instance, the scene with the German commander and Mohnfeld at the end of the movie where Harker (Nigel Green) surrenders his troops; the German commander reminds Mohnfeld to follow protocol (before Harker shoots Mohnfeld)offering Harker & his troops first aid. No summarial mass execution of troops like what
Germans are stereotypically portrayed doing in any context quite often in WW-II
movies.

Granted, atrocities in Russia by Einsatzgruppen units clearly happened, North Africa was quite different then then the war in Europe in terms of proper prisoner treatment. Not to soft pedal it, war is war, but reletive to the atrocities in Russia, the war in Africa was not an orgy of sadistic Pogroms.

The German U-Boat arm had been accused of massacres of sinking survivors in life-boats which later were proved to have no basis except for one isolated incident out of hundreds of encounters.

As you said Gammalord, Tobruk didn't show all Germans as hysterical fire breathing zealots and so forth.

Yes! with CGI in its prime and only getting better, mabye will see some more WW-II movies with accurate equipment.

The Bridge at Remagen was reasonable, it had a German Horch light Truck featured in it. It had some old British ack ack guns representing 88mm Flak 36's which was a reasonable substitute. They had Germans using Panzerfaust weapons against the Americans in the street fighting scenes in the movie.

The Eagle has Landed featured some nice Stug III panzers seen being transported on railcars which was nice.

I was thinking wouldn't it be wild if there was a re-touched version of Patton to digitally erase the M-48's into Panzer Mark IV Specials and the M-47's into Shermans for the battle of El Guetar in the North Africa sequence; re-touch the Ardennes part of the movie to dub in King Tiger Tanks...

[–] McStallen 17 years ago

Your diatribe on the depiction of German soldiers in WWII movies is all well and good, but how about a spoiler warning next time? I had only seen half of the movie Tobruk- and was going to see the other half soon- but now I know how it ends. I'll get over it though- there are worse things in life.

[–] benbo-3 13 years ago

I too have seen dozens of war movies, & the anachronisms are grating - the most obvious being the 1/2 tracks & Patton tanks made up to be German - most war movies of the 60s & 70s did this. I remember one with the Germans shooting 1903 Springfields (to be passed off as Mausers)! Still, give credit where it's due - the Italian & French weapons look authentic (besides the Allied & German), the flamethrower scenes are horrifyingly realistic, the German military police inspecting the convoy had the silver breastplates, and of course the languages - kudos to Peppard for learning lines in German & Italian, Hudson for Arabic, & doubtless other soldiers of the SIG for German as well. Very satisfying to hear dialogue in natural language, instead of thick pseudo-accents. The 1 nitpick is the British commandos seemed to all have American weapons, like Tommy guns - a British platoon with tommies but no Stens?

[–] ib011f9545i 9 years ago

Britain bought many thousands of Tommy guns in 1939/1940,there is a famous photo of an elderly home guard man cleaning one on his kitchen table.

The regular army also had Tommy guns,my late father had one in 1940 when he was in the army.

Later on the Sten was issued in huge numbers to British troops but they still used the Tommy gun,and special forces always used the Thompson,indeed it part of the combined operations badge to this day.

The Vichy French troops at the start of the film,with the cool leather coats,are carrying post war Danish MADSEN machine guns.

[–] heywood2001 17 years ago

Yeah, the 'jedda' gaffe cracked me up! a real faux pas.

Your comment about the various ethnicities speaking their correct tongues is right on the mark, it made the film more realistic.

Tobruk is a great companion film to, Guns of Navarrone, which had all Germans speaking German, and the several ocassions where Gregory Peck spoke German impersonating a German officer.

Tobruk didn't have as big of a budget as Guns of Navarrone, but it certainly didn't slouch on effects for the most part. It had very nice Albert Whitlock Matte shots of various shots of the city of Tobruk in daylight and during a nightime air-raid.

The big harbor guns was a beautiful full scale set, it looked great!

There were a few insert shots of Allied bombers that were clearly minatures probably yanked from some other movie that were feeble, but for the most part the production had decent effects.

The best minature effects were when Rock Hudson's character, Major Craig, was in the tank blasting away at the fuel depot. Very nicely done and quite realistic by and large.

The down side of the movie is American M-3 half-tracks doubling as
German Sdkfz 7 troop half tracks, and M-48's doubling ostensibly as Panzer IV's or whatever, but to me this was completely forgivable as the movie had a
very engaging plot and strong character contrasts.

Having Rock Hudson as a Candian officer is passable.

Nigel Green as Harker was great, Peppard was good, the supporting British actors were good in their parts and added to the authenticity.

historically, I'm not certain about the part where they clear the mine field
when they shoot one mine with a burst of machine gun fire, and all the rest blow up too. I have a fairly solid grasp of WW-II history regarding weapons and such, but I don't ever recall reading about anything as how the movie portrayed the minefields domino effect of blowing up one mine, then all the others go up too.

[–] flyer333555 16 years ago

Well, there have been mines daisy-chained and coupled so that when one blows up, so do others. While I do not know if as many mines would have exploded as portrayed in the film. Doubt it...

The first use of such type of mine was by the Finns in 1939. The Germans used them in Africa in 1942.

See (copy and paste) http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/981100-schneck.htm, by a US Army major. He does not explain them but shows so in a table.

[–] lidlownbrandproduct 16 years ago

Hummm...isn't Jedda the 'home' of the jihad.

As you were.

It's like a big tide of jam coming toward us, but jam made out of old women