I share your enthusiasm for James Mason, a definite crush when I was a young person, therefore it was somewhat shocking to discover much later that Gen.Erwin Rommel was not the nice person Mason with his very sophisticated personality portrayed.

The real general was a brutish animal.

The name of the film that you are looking for happens to be:

The Desert Fox

Rent 1949's "Decision Before Dawn" starring Oscar Werner, and spare yourself a senseless trip to this "hero biography," about an aristocratic Nazi general, who when the stakes were so sky high, bungled up operation, mission: Hitler Die!

You said your son is a history major. He would flunk my WWII class. This movie is not accurate. The plotters hated Hitler and wanted to kill him because 1.Hitler violated his Faustian bargain with Hindenberg that the Landwehr would be the only bearer of arms in die Fatherland by creating the Waffen SS and giving them priviledges over the General Staff 2. Hitler interfered with military tactics and strategy, leading to horrible losses and problems (see Barbarossa as an easy example of why the General Staff hated Hitler and 3. Hitler diverted supplies and soldiers from the Eastern Front to the death camps, making horrible situations even more so and 4. Hitler's buddy screwed up the Luftwaffe, denying them air supremacy, etc.Add in that Hitler was just an enlisted man...They didn't give a rat's ass about the atrocities at the camps; the camps were built to keep soldiers from going insane on the Eastern Front from directly killing Jews (see the Wann See Conference). All these guys wanted was to win enough battles to negotiate a settlement with the Allies on favorable terms.

The most important thing to come out of this was Rommel's suicide (he was given the choice of suicide or a public trial with reprisals against his family). It sealed the Axis's fate and really gave the ground war to the Allies in the invasion of Fortress Europe.

I've read the plot, and gotten the package from the producers (I am a military history professor teaching WWII next semester, and they want us to recommend it). No.

So maxiemom, tell your some to read Keegan's The Second World War, watch the excellent World at War series, and whatever he does, DO NOT reference this film in any WWII military history class. If he does, he will get humiliated.

Cruise does not carry himself as he should. I've seen that in the trailers. I would rather have seen this story made by a German director with international actors (like Das Boot). The trailers have little things wrong with them. Perhaps if they had actually read "The German General Talk" or the Nuremberg debriefings they would have gotten the story right.

There are no heroes here. Not in this story. That is one thing that many Germans understand. It is not that they see him as a traitor. It is that they wanted to do the right thing for the wrong reason AND they screwed it up.

Movies that deal with historical events--as "Valkyrie" does--are best made in semidocumentary style. They should be comprehensive, and they should adhere to the historical record. Consider "The Longest Day" (1962) about D-Day. It was based on Cornelius Ryan's book. "A Night to Remember" (1958), about TITANIC's sinking, was based on Walter Lord's book of the same name.

"Sink the BISMARCK!" (1960)? A good movie, if loose with the facts on occasion. The German fleet commander, Admiral Gunther Lutjens, is portrayed as a rabid bad guy (the opposite of the Admiral's actual character and personality). BISMARCK is shown taking torpedo hits from Captain Vian's destroyers (she didn't), sinking a destroyer (she didn't), and shooting down Swordfish torpedo bombers (she didn't).

My point? If you're making a movie dealing with an historical event, stick to the historical record, to the known facts. The events speak for themselves.

I would recommend Kurt Schussnigg of Austria. For those who don't know his story, and to the extent memory serves, Schussnigg succeeded a man named Dolfuss, who came to power around the time of Hitler and Mussolini, and likewise suspended parliament, etc. But the Austrians lived by their WWI treaty obligations and Dolfuss was not anti-semetic, at least compared to the Germans. Freud later recalled that while his family was not particularly religious, they prayed from time to time for the Austrian government, realizing that the Germans were comparatively much worse. Dolfuss was assassinated, and Schussnigg replaced him.

Schussnigg stood up to Hitler for a time to avoid the Anschluss, and even out-foxed the Germans by calling for a plebiscite on it, which he anticipated would vote for independence. Hitler threatened war; Schussnigg gave an impassioned national radio address declaring "bis zu dem Tod; Rot Weiss Rot" (together until death, red white red); he eventually relented to avoid bloodshed; then spent much time upon his arrest in a concentration camp, yet survived the war. He may have done some dishonorable things as well - I don't know - but he certainly had his high points. He was right wing and Germanic without being involved in any of the Nazi crimes.

Curiously, the movie Sound of Music makes a passing allusion to Schussnigg in the scenes where Von Trapp's ball features an Austrian flag and an Austrian design on his top coat. Schussnigg had banned all political insignias other than red/white/red; Von Trapp seems to have been a Schussnigg supporter (in real life, of course, he fled to America via Italy, and died shortly after the war).

As the lady said, "Aren't you a little short to be an imperial storm trooper?"

Could we EVER!

C'mon its just a movie. The producers could have given it a a little plot twist no one would've seen coming. I mean couldn't we all use a happy ending right about now?

about Klaus

www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Claus_Schenk_Graf_von_Stauffenberg

I say he can

He can act it up grand

Like a big fat ham...

and, IMHO, it sucked, big time. It seemed reasonably accurate, but the lighting was impossibly 21st century, the lack of accent consistency (as in pick one) was extremely disconcerting. Also, even during WWII, things happened at a slower pace, and the film simply ignored that.

Also, Cruise was terrible. He has overacted in virtually everything for 20 years. His early stuff - All the Right Moves and Risky Business - showed real promise, but, then, we had Top Gun, The Color of Money and Cocktail where he basically chewed the scenery. Somehow, he got himself back on track with Rain Man (by far his best performance ever) and mostly with Born on the Fourth of July. Since then, he is the epitome of overacting. Nothing has changed here.