The Desert Rats (1953)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1953
Running Time	84:31
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Robert Wise
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Richard Burton Robert Newton Robert Douglas Torin Thatcher Chips Rafferty Charles 'Bud' Tingwell Charles Davis Ben Wright James Mason
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Leigh Harline

    Richard Burton and Robert Newton star in this movie, which focuses on an Australian battalion who find themselves placed under the control of a British commander. Captain 'Tammy' MacRoberts (Richard Burton) has been tasked with the job of defending and holding Tobruk against the advancing German army under the command of Field Marshal Rommel (James Mason). It seems Mason is a popular choice of actor when it comes to Rommel's character as I can quickly think of 3 movies where he played the part, with Raid on Rommell and The Desert Fox being the two others. Mason has always had a certain sophistication and charisma that oozes from his every performance. I can think of no other actor that can do such justice to the man he is portraying. In fact, Mason won the Best Actor award from the National Board of Review for his performance in this movie. This must have been frustrating to Burton who had a considerably larger portion of the movie to act in. Then we have Robert Newton who plays Tom Bartlett, the drunk private who coincidentally was Captain MacRoberts' teacher before the war. He provides something of a link between the commander and "his" men as well as a constant reality check for each other.

    During World War II it was no secret that the Aussie troops resented having British commanders and this story plays on this a great deal. In fact, in this story, the commander needs to prove himself to the troops he is commanding rather than the other way around. As the movie progresses you see events which can sway both the command and his troops for or against each and you hope that each makes the right choice and supports each other. After all, in war there is either team work or death, with no grey areas.

    The troops are initially inexperienced and far from battlehardy. They are given assignments by their commander to undertake night raids against the Germans and disrupt their supply lines, causing general chaos for the enemy. Whilst this is quite successful, the men become so well adapted to this type of warfare that boredom sets in at doing the same thing night after night. They are saved from this boredom when they receive word that Rommel has the British in retreat and is advancing rapidly on his way to the Suez Canal. All that stands in his way is Tobruk, and the men are to hold this town at all costs. Whilst the Australian troops are vastly outnumbered, they show how and why they so proudly earned the nickname 'The Desert Rats'.

    The Desert Rats would have to be one of my top 10 favourite wartime classic movies, along with other titles such as The Desert Fox, The Guns of Navarone, The Eagle Has Landed and Saving Private Ryan to name just a few. Sure this feature lacks special effects or a huge budget but it's the story that is interesting and allows such films to be viewed time and time again.

    For those who are interested, the filming of this film actually took place in Palm Springs and San Diego, both of which are in California and a world away from the searing heat of Tobruk.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

    The transfer is typical of what you would expect for a movie of this age. The image is soft for the most part although it appears a little sharper in the second half. Shadow detail is a problem at times with poor levels of detail in some scenes as a result of the source material. For the remainder of the film the detail is sufficient but keep in mind that the majority of footage is on the battlefield and at night. The explosions which result in a white or black surge of luminance play havoc with the cameras at times and these sections appear blurred during the flash. There is no low level noise.

    This is a black and white film so we have a greyscale rather than colour per se. There is sufficient detail and use of grey shading to make out all objects with the only exception being during the the few instances where shadow detail is a problem.

    There were no MPEG artefacts. Aliasing is rare and mild when it does occur. There is a reel change marking at 55:36. The biggest problem by far is to do with film artefacts which are rampant throughout the film but again, the second half looks slightly better in quality. There is everything from dust and hairs to scratches which appear at frequent intervals. The majority are black in colour and not too intrusive, but the white flecks really stand out and can create a slight distraction at times.

    There are quite a few subtitles available which are close to, but not exact with the spoken word. The Germans speak mostly in German which further adds to the realism. One thing I found irritating was that no subtitles appeared during these sections unless you had already selected English subtitles from the menu. The catch is that you cannot engage subtitles on the fly as they have been disabled. You need to return to the main menu, make the change and then resume the movie. Hardly effective and it's far easier to just make up your own story about what is being said. It's unfortunate that such a glitch has been authored onto this disc.

    This disc is a dual layered single sided disc with a possible layer change at 55:44 during a black scene change. I say possible because I found it difficult to precisely locate the transition.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. All soundtracks are Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded. I listened to the English version in its entirety.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times. Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on.

    The musical score by Leigh Harline made little impression on me. It was typical of the era but was not particularly attention-grabbing. Waltzing Matilda is scattered throughout the movie just to give it that Aussie feel from a music point of view.

    The surround channels were lightly used for music and special effects. Don't expect any directional effects, but it's nice to have the rear soundfield used at least.

    The subwoofer is not utilised by this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (2:34)

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Nothing

• German subtitles
• Italian subtitles

    This is a great movie that was only really spoilt by the subtitles not being displayed during German conversation.

    The video quality is typical of such an old movie that has most likely not been cared for well in storage.

    The audio quality is adequate for the movie.

    The only extra is in the form of a trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall