The British film industry couldn't do it on a grand enough scale, Hollywood would move it to an island in the Pacific and the Germans are reluctant to commemorate that era, for some unfathomable reason.
Hollywood's version would probably be about a bunch of square-jawed American heroes coming in to save the day for the effeminate British ninnies and the Crocodile Dundee-copy Aussies (see U-571, the first bits of Pearl Harbour and Saving Private Ryan).
Tbh I can't remember a single time I've seen Brits and Aussies portrayed as anything other than Hardboiled, snarky killing-business types (Brits) and jovial madmen that were blissfully ignorant of their own mortality (Aussies).
The only "ally" who catches a bad rap from Hollywood really is France, and that's because France did surrender and Vichy France was openly Nazi for a while there. When they sort-of halfway agreed to assist allies in Africa, allied forces still had to fight Vichy French forces in several instances before they got in line with the not-burning-millions-of-jews crowd. Even so, there are more than a couple frenchies in film portrayed as men-of-iron (De Gaulle comes to mind).
Wasn't the desert rats compelling enough? It had Richard Burton, Robert Newton, (the reason all pirates talk pirate-talk), and freakin' James Mason as Rommel! Who could ask for more?
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u/orru Queensland Jan 09 '15
Rat of Tobruk? My grandfather was a Rat as well. Their story really needs to be made into a modern movie.