Desert Victory

1943 PG-13 1h 0m

6.3 / 10 11

RATING

6.3/10

YOUR RATING

A featureless land fit only for war, as the narrator, J. L. Hodson stated in the early scenes: "If war was to be fought then let it begin here". In endless miles of rock-strewn scrub desert, where civilians hardly existed. Desert Victory tells the story of the Allied campaign to drive Germany and Italy from North Africa is analysed, with the major portion of the film examining the battles at El Alamein, including some re-enactment. Won "Best Documentary Feature" at the 16th Academy Awards in 1944.

Director David MacDonald

Writers

J.L. Hodson

Stars

Harold Alexander Winston Churchill Adolf Hitler

👤

Harold Alexander

Self (archive footage)

Winston Churchill

Self (archive footage)

Adolf Hitler

Self (archive footage)

Bernard L. Montgomery

Self (archive footage)

Erwin Rommel

Self (archive footage)

👤

Claude Auchinleck

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

👤

Alan Brooke

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

👤

Alan Cunningham

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Joseph Goebbels

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

👤

Henry Harwood

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

👤

J.L. Hodson

Narrator (voice) (uncredited)

👤

Arthur Tedder

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

👤

Wilhelm von Thoma

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

War Documentary

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User Reviews 1

Geronimo1967 7 Jul 2025

6/10

This wartime documentary has one advantage over many of it’s contemporaries. It’s a largely self-contained story of the planning and execution of a battle from the Second World War that was actually won. It’s also a much more internationalist depiction of the activities by soldiers of many different nations that fought against Rommel’s hitherto unbeaten Afrika Korps across Mesapotamia and towards ...