They crawled their way across the blazing sands of Africa... to turn disaster into victory!
The Desert Rats was a quickly assembled follow-up to 20th Century-Fox's successful war film The Desert Fox. Richard Burton plays an officer in the British Eighth Army, battling Rommel's forces in defense of Tobruk. Put in charge of an Australian unit, Burton rides his men ruthlessly, with laudatory results. He is briefly captured by the Nazis and questioned by General Rommel himself, but Burton escapes to lead his surviving troops to safety. James Mason, who portrayed Rommel in The Desert Fox, makes a guest appearance in the same role in The Desert Rats.


The movie received generally good reviews from British critics, although they complained the British contribution to the campaign had been minimised.[8] Australian critics were also positive despite the historical inaccuracies.[9][10]
The film was banned in Egypt.[11]
During production, 20th Century Fox offered Charles Tingwell a seven-year contract but he turned it down because he wanted to keep working in Australia


Release Date: May 20, 1953

Distrib: 20th Century Fox