AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 1824550945555645016.jpg
Source: Amazon
form y separately published work icon The Rats of Tobruk single work   film/TV  
Alternative title: The Fighting Rats of Tobruk
Note: Maxwell Dunn is credited with writing the narrative.
Issue Details: First known date: 1944... 1944 The Rats of Tobruk
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Australia's only fully war-time feature, The Rats of Tobruk focuses on three friends who are cattle droving in the outback just before the outbreak of World War II. By 1941, restless Bluey Donkin, easy-going Milo Trent, and Shakespeare-quoting Englishman Peter Linton have decided to join the Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F.) and later find themselves in North Africa fighting Rommel's army.

After early successes against the Italian army, the Australian 9th Division finds itself besieged in Tobruk. When not fighting, the men have comic encounters with a barber, while Peter falls for a nurse, Sister Mary, after being wounded. The other two men are also later wounded, but it is Peter who is eventually killed just before the others are able to repel the enemy. Bluey and Milo are then later transferred to New Guinea, where Bluey is injured and Milo killed by a sniper. Bluey manages to kill the sniper.

A romance subplot occurs between Bluey (who prior to leaving Australia was not prepared to settle down with any woman) and the daughter of a squatter, Kate, who is in love with him. When Bluey finally returns home, he and Kate are united.

Exhibitions

Notes

  • 'The Rats of Tobruk may not be Charles Chauvel’s best movie, but it deserves serious consideration as his best movie about war – which is to argue that it is in some ways superior to his more famous and better-loved Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), made four years earlier. Horsemen is a more entertaining and better constructed film, fully deserving of its place in the Australian pantheon, but The Rats of Tobruk gives us a better depiction of its subject – the grim, dusty, desperate siege of Tobruk in Libya in 1941, during which a combined force of British, Indian and Australian troops held off Rommel’s Afrika Korps for eight months' (Paul Byrnes, Australian Screen).
  • Further Reference:

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Unsung Aussie Filmmakers – Grant Taylor : A Top Ten Stephen Vagg , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: FilmInk , 29 July 2019;
What Do Mad Max's Six Oscars Mean for the Australian Film Industry? Vincent O'Donnell , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 1 March 2016;
'The career of Dr George Miller reminds me of that of Charles Chauvel, one of the greatest showmen of the Australian cinema. Both men – though separated by many decades – have employed epic cinematic forms and nationalistic themes. ...'
Rewind : The Making of Breaker Morant Geoff Stanton , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: FilmInk , 25 April 2016;
Aussie Cinema Classics Revisited Troy Lennon , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier Mail , Saturday 5 April 2014; (p. 11)
'The great Australian film director Charles Chauvel only made nine feature films in his career...'
Our Golden Age Michael Bodey , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-39 March 2014; (p. 12-13)
Great Australian War Film : 'The Rats of Tobruk' 'The Chiel' , 1944 single work
— Appears in: The Argus , 8 December 1944; (p. 2)

— Review of The Rats of Tobruk Elsa Chauvel , Charles Chauvel , Maxwell Dunn , 1944 single work film/TV
New Films in Sydney Theatres 1944 single work
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 11 December no. 33374 1944; (p. 5)

— Review of The Rats of Tobruk Elsa Chauvel , Charles Chauvel , Maxwell Dunn , 1944 single work film/TV
How an Australian Film is Made : Back Stage News on Production of 'The Rats of Tobruk' 1944 single work
— Appears in: The Argus , 16 September 1944; (p. Supp. p.6)
Filming 'The Rats of Tobruk' 'The Chiel' , 1944 single work
— Appears in: The Argus , 7 December 1944; (p. 2)
New York Calls 'The Rats' a Most Harrowing Bore 1951 single work
— Appears in: The Argus , 25 May 1951; (p. 7)
Our Golden Age Michael Bodey , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-39 March 2014; (p. 12-13)
Aussie Cinema Classics Revisited Troy Lennon , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier Mail , Saturday 5 April 2014; (p. 11)
'The great Australian film director Charles Chauvel only made nine feature films in his career...'
Last amended 10 Sep 2015 12:02:54
Settings:
  • North Africa, Africa,
  • c
    Papua New Guinea,
    c
    Pacific Region,
  • ca. 1940-1941
  • ca. 1942-1944
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X