Heroes Without Glory (1971)

Director: Alfredo Rizzo

Starring: Jeff Cameron and desert full of Italians

More Info: IMDB

Plot: 1942. The Anglo-American Army and the Africa Corps are face-to-face in the desert, separated by some mine-fields which the soldiers have named "the devil's garden". A huge German fuel deposit supplies Rommel's army in North Africa and an allied "commando" has to blow it up. Commanded by an English major, the patrol, after various ups and downs, is reduced to only six men and three prisoners: a chaplain, a Red Cross nurse both German, and an Italian Lieutenant. These three persuade the others to give up their task and follow them in search of the tomb of Pharaoh Cambyse and its fabulous treasure. But an ancient curse lies on the gold, which causes the death of whoever finds it.

My Rating: 4/10

Would I watch it again? ONLY if a nice, widescreen print surfaced


I watched a VHS copy with Greek subs hard-coded and it's a shitty pan & scan print at that. A nice widescreen print would have helped but not much. This one's not good. It's silly and amateurish.

I don't know what it is but it seems that even the Italians make the Arabs into buffoons. I've watched quite a few WWII North African campaign movies this year, made from the 1940s on up, and most of them turn the Arabs into comic relief. I could seriously do without that. These films don't need the "funny" and it's rarely ever funny anyway.

"Laaaaaadyyyyy"

Back to the shitty film...so we're following these guys through the desert for about 45 minutes when they come across a small oasis and, after yet another firefight, they find three survivors, one priest, nurse and a wounded Italian soldier. They're all phonies as they're looking for treasure. WTF? Yup. But we don't know that yet.


It's nearly an hour into the 92 minute picture that the jig is up. Now all of the commandos are on a treasure hunt. They come across an important landmark - a rock bridge! The only rock in a sea of sand! Yeah, great fucking way to hide your treasure. Whatever.


At this point the film shifts. It's now a treasure hunt and everyone turns on the British commanding officer to go after the treasure instead of completing their mission. 15 minutes later they've got all the treasure they can carry when they're attacked by non-funny Arabs (a nice change of pace). Now that that's over with, it's time to relax at the nearest oasis and dream of spending all that newly-found loot and booty.


Say, speaking of booty, the nurse gives us a nice WTF moment by doing what any lone woman would do in a situation like this...get naked and bathe in the water supply just yards from battle-worn soldiers.


Don't get me wrong. At this point it's a nice WTF diversion. I'm ready for this turd to end, and for them to throw this into the mix 15 minutes before it's over was welcomed indeed.


Oh, the priest (who's not a priest we soon discover - but we kind of figured that anyway) is eying her as she bathes, can't take it any longer and tries to slip her his own brand of communion. Big fight and once the dust settles they're attacked by more Arabs. I guess these guys are pissed at how they were portrayed at the start of the picture. Geez. Talk about holding a grudge.


By now the squad is reduced to the British Major, the nurse and some soldier whose name I've forgotten but he's been a HUGE pain in the ass for the Major and he tried to kill the Major at some point. I bring this up because...


They reach the fuel depot they're supposed to blow up and the Major sacrifices himself for the mission and the other cat with the nurse go riding off into the sunset. Well, there's not really a sunset because it's dark but we know they make it because as soon as the depot is kaput, there's a shot of a sub surfacing in the darkness. I assume the two kids make it. Great! Asshole gets the girl and I just lost 92 minutes of my life.


Coriolano Gori's score fits the bill nicely even if sounding an awful lot like John Barry's main theme from ZULU (1964). The direction is sloppy and, for the most part, I just didn't care about hardly any of the characters. The action is OK at best with everyone being shot throwing their arms in the air as they die. Typical low budget WWII fare. It's sad my little Euro WWII binge ended with this one. Almost. I did redeem myself with an amazing British picture called, ICE-COLD IN ALEX (1958). It turned out to be the best WWII film I've seen in a long time. But HEROES WITHOUT GLORY stinks on ice. Pee-yew.