Bitter Victory

Earlier this year, I bought this 5-film "war" movie box set. (Young Winston, which I blogged about not so long ago, is only partly a war movie, while I wouldn't call The Prisoner a war film at all.) I had recorded Bitter Victory before picking up this set, and finally got around to watching it.

The scene is North Africa during World War II, when the Germans still control a fair portion of North Africa, notably Benghazi. The British command in Cairo wants to get some important information from the Germans, necessitating a commando operation. Who to lead it? They have two choices. Capt. Leith (Richard Burton) knows the area and speaks Arabic, having studied the archaeology of North Africa. But he's only a captain. Maj. Brand (Curd Jürgens) has rank on Leith, but is a by the books officer who doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the men under him. So the general makes the Solomonic decision to have both men go with the rest of the commandos, with Brand nominally in command.

Brand and Leith then go to dinner, where Brand introduces Leith to Mrs. Brand (Ruth Roman). Of course, they need no introduction, as Mrs. Brand had a relationship with Leith before marrying Brand, one that Leith broke off. But for whatever reason, Maj. Brand is pissed about it, probably because his wife still holds a candle for Leith. So there's going to be a lot more tension between Leith and Brand.

The men parachute in behind the lines and reach their assigned target. Unsurprisingly, the place is well-guarded enough that the commandos aren't going to be able to get those documents unmolested. And wouldn't you know it, one of the German guards spots the interlopers and attacks. Brand finds himself unable to kill the enemy, being too much of a coward to kill at close range, leaving Leith to do the deed. No wonder nobody has any respect for Brand.

The commandos head out into the desert toward where they're supposed to rendezvous with the people who are going to provide them with the camels they need to get the rest of the way out of the desert. However, along the way they spot a German patrol and get into a firefight with them, killing several but also leaving a British solder and a German officer seriously wounded. Brand, being in command, comes up with the brilliant idea of leaving Leith behind with the two wounded men since they can't just leave a British soldier to die alone. It also has the added benefit in Brand's mind that it will probably kill Leith too, and Leith won't be able to report back to Cairo how much of a coward Brand was.

It doesn't quite work out that way, as Leith decides the least bad thing to do is to put both wounded men out of their misery. The two wounded do ultimately die out there in the desert, leaving Leith free to leave the scene and catch up with Brand. Boy can you bet there's going to be a lot of tension once Leith shows up again, and even more when they discover the people provisioning the camels have been found out and killed, leaving just one camel for the men.

You'll have to watch the rest of Bright Victory to see how the conflict between Leith and Brand is resolved. It's an interesting movie in that it's more of a thoughtful movie than a war movie of action. Casting a German in Jürgens as an Allied officer (he's passed off as South African, presumably an Afrikaner) seems odd, but works because he gives a good performance. I'm not the biggest fan of Richard Burton, but he doesn't do anything to make the movie worse. Roman only gets a couple of scenes, while the commandos include a very young Christopher Lee whom I didn't recognize at first.

Much of the filming was done on location in Libya; this was a dozen years before Qaddafi came to power. The rest was done in France. Although the print TCM ran has a Columbia logo at the beginning, the movie was made by a comapny called Transcontinental Films based in France with Columbia getting distribution rights in the English-speaking world. Apparently there were cuts made for the original release (there are a couple of scenes I can understand censors being unhappy with), but the print TCM ran and the one on the box set are both around 102 minutes which, as I understand it, was the original pre-cut running time.

People who want a war movie with less action will probably enjoy Bitter Victory, but be aware that it's also a bit of an acquired taste.