Tank Force ~ at Runboard.com

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Tank Force

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warfilmman
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Registered: 02-2005
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Tank Force

Tank Force aka No Time to Die
1957 Columbia

A seldom heard of film is this rather good film from 1957. It was directed by Terence Young, and produced by Cubby Brocolli.

Terence Young went on to direct a few of the early Bonds, and indeed this film is in some ways more like a Bond than a conventional British 1950s battle film. Within a running time of just 80 minutes, there are two tank battles, a prisoner of war camp escape, the uncovering of a traitor and then a psycho killer, a sandstorm, and battle within an Arab encampment. The film is reminiscent too of “The Red Beret” in that a great British cast is lead by a wooden U.S. Star. In this case Victor Mature is the Yank serving with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

The rest of the cast are familiar faces: Leo Genn, Anthony Newley, David Lodge, Percy Herbert and Kenneth Cope. With another U.S. character actor Bonar Colleano playing the murderous “Pole”. Victor Mature isn’t too bad, and indeed it might have been nice to elaborate on his past. You find out that his wife was Jewish, and in revenge for her murder he had been captured by the Gestapo attempting to kill the Nazi hierarchy. But all this is spurted out and not elaborated on.

The film definitely benefits from being in colour and being shot on location in Libya. The uniforms are fairly good. Leo Genn wears a “Cherry Pickers” wartime beret, which is nice. On the armour front, the main tank used is the Centurian, okay its postwar, but nice to see a British tank instead of all the U.S. Pattons seen in many war films. There are a smattering of Cromwells too, and a very nice AEC armoured car gets rolled during an action sequence.

If only the film could have been 20 minutes longer, a bit more time could have been devoted to character development, but basically a cracking little movie

2/12/2005, 2:46 am

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