The quality of Mature's work went down considerably after he left 20th Century Fox for the most part and Tank Force is a prime example. When the fantastic four of Mature, Genn, Newley, and Colleano escape in the African desert, both the Nazis and the Italians keep fumbling the capture. It shows the Nazis as the stupidest kind of people imaginable. Desperate Journey was one of my least favorite Errol Flynn movies. When the Axis finds out Mature's in their custody, he has to escape and quick because he won't be treated like any other prisoner of war. He's an American who was married to a Jewish wife and who tried to assassinate Joe Goebbels and escaped Nazi custody. But in that regard he's nothing to Victor Mature. He's fighting his own private war with the Axis and does not take to discipline easily. Bonar Colleano plays the Pole who has enlisted in the British Army after his country surrendered. Leo Genn is one of the escapees and he's a strict by the book disciplinarian.

Only four British prisoners one of them an American and another one a Pole, manage to escape in what should have been a more successful operation from combined German and Italian custody on the African front. Tank Force is a curious combination of The Great Escape and Desperate Journey. Genn in particular is very good as the Brit with the stiff upper lip and the exciting climax rounds things off quite nicely. Once the plot gets going it trundles along quite nicely with the usual run of plot twists, betrayals, and sudden death, and there's even time for a scene of romance or two here and there. The supporting cast is populated by the familiar faces of Anthony Newley, Percy Herbert, George Coulouris, and many others.

The film features a mature Mature and a very good Leo Genn as allies who are sent to an Italian prisoner of war camp in North Africa and who vow to escape. While scenes of tank warfare are limited to moments at the beginning and end, for the most part this is a fitfully exciting desert adventure with some suspense and incident to see it through. It's a British WW2 movie made up to look like an American film with Victor Mature as the imported lead and to the film's credit it always convinces as a bigger budgeted production. I caught this on TV under the title TANK FORCE.

Tank force 1958