The Rats of Tobruk (film)

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{{For|the Australian soldiers|The Rats of Tobruk}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}
{{Infobox film
| name = The Rats of Tobruk
| image = The Rats of Tobruk VideoCover.jpeg
| caption =
| director = [[Charles Chauvel (filmmaker)|Charles Chauvel]]
| producers = {{ubl|[[Charles Chauvel (filmmaker)|Charles Chauvel]]|Charles Munro}}
| writer = {{ubl|[[Charles Chauvel (filmmaker)|Charles Chauvel]]|Elsa Chauvel|Maxwell Dunn (commentary)}}
| starring = {{ubl|[[Grant Taylor (actor)|Grant Taylor]]|[[Peter Finch]]|[[Chips Rafferty]]|[[George Wallace (Australian comedian)|George Wallace]]}}
| music = {{ubl|[[Lindley Evans]] (Musical Direction)|[[Charles Mackerras]] (Associate)|[[Willie Redstone]] (Associate)}}
| cinematography = [[George Heath (cinematographer)|George Heath]]
| editing = [[Gus Lowry]]
| studio = Chamun Productions
| distributor = {{ubl|[[RKO]] (Australia)|Umbrella Entertainment}}
| released = {{film date|df=yes|1944|12|7|Australia|1949|||UK|1951|||US}}
| runtime = {{ubl|95 mins (Aust)|68 minutes}}
| country = Australia
| language = English
| budget =
}}
'''''The Rats of Tobruk''''' is a 1944 Australian film directed by [[Charles Chauvel (filmmaker)|Charles Chauvel]]. An abridged version was released in the United States in 1951 as '''''The Fighting Rats of Tobruk'''''. The film follows three [[Drover (Australian)|drover]] friends who enlist in the Australian Army together during [[World War II]]. Their story is based on the [[The Rats of Tobruk|siege]] of the [[Libya]]n city of [[Tobruk]] in North Africa by [[Rommel]]'s [[Afrika Korps]]. The largely Australian defenders held the city for 250 days before being relieved by British forces.

==Plot==
Three friends are droving cattle in Australia in 1939: the restless Bluey Donkin, easy-going Milo Trent and English Peter Linton, who is in the country on a working holiday. Squatter's daughter Kate Carmody is in love with Bluey but he refuses to be tied down to any one woman. War breaks out and the three men enlist in the Australian army and are assigned to the 9th Division. They ship out to Africa.

After early successes against the Italian army, the army is besieged in Tobruk. In between attacks, the men have comic encounters with a barber and Peter falls for a nurse, Sister Mary, after being wounded. There are several subsequent attacks in which all three soldiers are wounded. Peter Linton is killed but the others manage to repel the Germans.

Bluey and Milo are then transferred to [[New Guinea]], where Bluey is injured and Milo killed by a sniper. Bluey manages to kill the sniper and returns to Australia, where he is reunited with Kate.

==Cast==
*[[Grant Taylor (actor)|Grant Taylor]] as Bluey Donkin
*[[Peter Finch]] as Peter Linton
*[[Chips Rafferty]] as Milo Trent
*[[George Wallace (Australian comedian)|George Wallace]] as the barber of Tobruk
*Pauline Garrick as Kate Carmody
*Mary Gay as Sister Mary Ellis
*[[Joe Valli]] as the Northumberland Fusilier
*John Sherwood
*[[Walter Pym (actor)|Walter Pym]]
*Norman Blackler
*Gilbert Ellis
*Robert Carlyle
*Joe Anderson
*Toni Villa as Japanese soldier
*Edward Esau as British officer who falls asleep in barber's chair

==Production==

===Development===
Chauvel made the film as a follow up to his enormously popular ''[[Forty Thousand Horsemen]]'' (1940). Like that movie, it follows three friends overseas to war, and starred Grant Taylor and Chips Rafferty.

In September 1941 Chauvel announced his follow up movie would have the background of the wool industry.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59154945 |title=Chauvel Talks on New Project |newspaper=[[Sunday Times (Perth)]] |location=Western Australia |date=14 September 1941 |access-date=17 May 2020 |page=8 (Supplement to ""The Sunday Times"") |via=Trove }}</ref> That seemed to change and in November 1942 Chauvel announced plans to make a film about the Rats of Tobruk.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17797629 |title=FILM PLANNED ON TOBRUK "RATS". |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=7 November 1942 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=10 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> He spent a year researching and writing, and securing government cooperation.<ref name="smh">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27938945 |title="RATS OF TOBRUK" FTLM SOON. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=7 June 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=6 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

In July 1943 ''Variety'' reported Charles Munro would help finance two films of Chauvel, ''Rats of Tobruk'' and ''Fuzzy-wuzzies''.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|url=https://archive.org/details/variety151-1943-07|title=Australia|page=[https://archive.org/details/variety151-1943-07/page/n150 95]|date=14 July 1943}}</ref>

Financing was obtained from [[Hoyts]], RKO-Radio, and [[Commonwealth Film Laboratories]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11361367 |title=HOW AN AUSTRALIAN FILM IS MADE. |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |location=Melbourne |date=16 September 1944 |accessdate=11 February 2012 |page=6 Supplement: The Argus Week-end Magazine |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11373617 |title=FILMING "THE RATS OF TOBRUK". |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |location=Melbourne |date=7 December 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Production of the movie was even announced in ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref>"A BIT OF THIS AND THAT ABOUT THE FILM SCENE" by THOMAS M. PRYOR. ''New York Times'' 29 August 1943: X3.</ref>

Mary Gay was working as a clerk in a department store when discovered in a talent quest and cast in the role of the nurse who romances Peter Finch.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article97940587 |title=Film Role For Sydney Girl. |newspaper=[[The Sunday Mail (Brisbane)|Sunday Mail]] |location=Brisbane |date=19 March 1944 |accessdate=9 March 2014 |page=6 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

===Shooting===
Shooting took place in late 1943. Taylor, Rafferty and Finch were all serving in the Australian army and played their parts on leave. A set representing the town of Tobruk was constructed in a field near Camden. Underground firing posts and dugouts were reconstructed in the studio of [[Commonwealth Film Laboratories]]. The Cronulla sandhills stood in for the African desert, and battle scenes were shot there at nighttime.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27939154 |title=BY WAYS OF THE ARMY. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=17 June 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=7 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Watson's Bay was used to shoot scenes of Australian soldiers embarking by boat.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27939119 |title="RATS OF TOBRUK" AT WATSON'S BAY. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=17 June 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=3 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

The New Guinea sequences were shot at [[Lamington Plateau]], near the [[O'Reilly's Guesthouse|crash site of the 1937 Stinson plane]]. (That wreck had been discovered by Bernard O'Reilly who inspired Chauvel's later film, ''[[Sons of Matthew]]''.) Army photographers also shot real-life footage in Papua for use in the movie.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17889403 |title=CHAUVEL FILM MEN IN JUNGLE. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=29 December 1943 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=8 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Filipino boxer Tony Villa plays the Japanese soldier who fights Grant Taylor at the end.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17910309 |title=JAPANESE TROPHIES FOR FILMS. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=12 June 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=4 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

Captured German and Italian weaponry was used throughout filming.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17859074 |title=FILM TO DEPICT EPIC DEFENCE OF TOBRUK. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=5 August 1943 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=6 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In 1943, the 3rd Army Tank Battalion was equipped with a squadron of Australian built [[Sentinel tank|Sentinel AC1]] tanks which had been modified to resemble German tanks. The army provided advisers who had served in Tobruk.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55864025 |title=Films You'll be Seeing Soon. |newspaper=[[The Mail (Adelaide)|The Mail]] |location=Adelaide |date=4 September 1943 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=10 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

Filming ended in June 1944.<ref name="smh"/>

==Reception==
===Critical===
The film received mixed reviews. The critic from the ''Argus'' thought it was better than ''Forty Thousand Horsemen''<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11373790 |title=GREAT AUSTRALIAN WAR FILM. |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |location=Melbourne |date=8 December 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> but the one from the ''[[Sydney Morning Herald]]'' claimed that:
<blockquote>The fictional background is dull and uninventive, the characterisation often stilted and self-consciously patterned to arbitrary types, and the editing loose and jumpy as the story which, in its amateurish nature, is a dead-weight on the entire production. The chief merits of the film, which was made in the face of great difficulties that may explain, but do not excuse, its weaknesses for a commercial market, are its reconstruction of Tobruk and the fidelity of its action scenes to historic fact. Yet, while these action scenes are truthful, their interpretation by the aim leaves their outlines and purposes vague so that an audience has to guess too much about who's fighting who and what the strategy is.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17931240 |title=NEW FILMS IN SYDNEY THEATRES. |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=11 December 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=5 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref></blockquote>
''Filmink'' magazine later wrote "I’m not quite sure what Taylor did during his war service, but it was having its impact already by the time of this film – Taylor looks puffier, more balder, less enthusiastic. He’s still pretty good, just not as good as in Horseman – like the film itself really, which was a commercial disappointment."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/unsung-aussie-filmmakers-grant-taylor-top-ten/|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=29 July 2019|title=Unsung Aussie Filmmakers – Grant Taylor: A Top Ten}}</ref>

===Box office===
Early box office response was encouraging<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11374734 |title=PUBLIC APPRECIATES "RATS OF TOBRUK". |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |location=Melbourne |date=14 December 1944 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=4 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> but the movie was not as popular as ''[[Forty Thousand Horsemen]]''.

===US Release===
It was not released in the US until 1951.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23074071 |title=New York calls 'The Rats' 'a most harrowing bore'. |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |location=Melbourne |date=25 May 1951 |accessdate=19 August 2012 |page=7 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> The critic from ''The New York Times'' called the movie "one of the most harrowing bores in years from anywhere... most of the eighty five minutes is crawling agony... it's a toss up as to which is more primeval, Mr Chauvel's direction or the acting of the entire cast."<ref>"THE SCREEN: FOUR FILMS HAVE PREMIERES HERE: Danny Kaye 'On the Riviera,' With Gene Tierney, Arrives at the Roxy Theatre 'Smuggler's Island' at Rivoli-- Paramount Showing 'Sealed Cargo'--'Tobruk' at City at the Paramount at the Rivoli at the City Theatre" by BOSLEY CROWTHER. ''New York Times'' 24 May 1951: 57.</ref>

==See also==
*''[[The Desert Rats (film)|The Desert Rats]]''
*[[Cinema of Australia]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://colsearch.nfsa.afc.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=Number%3A1262;querytype=;rec=0;resCount=10 The Rats of Tobruk] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180111192222/http://colsearch.nfsa.afc.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=Number:1262;querytype=;rec=0;resCount=10 |date=11 January 2018 }} at the [[National Film and Sound Archive]]
*{{IMDb title|0037212}}
*[http://aso.gov.au/titles/features/rats-of-tobruk/ The Rats of Tobruk] at [[Australian Screen Online]]
*[https://archive.org/details/TheRatsOfTobruk-UsTrailer/ US Trailer] at [[Internet Archive]]
*[http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=4038890 Original treatment] at [[National Archives of Australia]]
*[http://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/rats-of-tobruk ''The Rats of Tobruk''] at Oz Movies
*[https://archive.org/stream/variety157-1945-02#page/n22/mode/1up Review of film] at ''Variety''
*[https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F07086/ Documentary footage of shooting in New Guinea the concluding scenes for Mr Charles Chauvel's film Rats of Tobruk] at [[Australian War Memorial]]
*{{cite web|website=National Archives of Australia|url=https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4038890|title=Copyright application for Rats of Tobruk}}
{{Charles Chauvel}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rats of Tobruk, The}}
[[Category:1944 films]]
[[Category:1940s war drama films]]
[[Category:Australian war drama films]]
[[Category:Australian World War II propaganda films]]
[[Category:North African campaign films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Charles Chauvel]]
[[Category:Films set in Libya]]
[[Category:Films set in Papua New Guinea]]
[[Category:Siege films]]
[[Category:Films set in 1939]]
[[Category:Films set in 1941]]
[[Category:Films set in 1942]]
[[Category:Australian black-and-white films]]
[[Category:1944 drama films]]
[[Category:1940s Australian films]]

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The Rats of Tobruk (film)