I was wondering if someone could happen to ID a WWII movie I saw a bit of, once—on TV or online, I can’t recall. Color, I’d guess 1970s-made by the production quality (slightly grindhousey). I’m almost certain it was dubbed into english.
It was about a Panzer unit, I think in Normandy—which I remember distinctly because they’d filmed it in what looked like California countryside during the summer, with plenty of lush dry grass, bright sun, and everyone looked like they’d gotten a good tan.
The other distinctive bit? The German tankers (running somewhat ragged, at this point) need to communicate with the Luftwaffe overhead, but don’t have a working radio. So, the Commander decides they should use “panel code”—something like this, using flags or tarps draped on the ground to send one-way messages to overhead observers. Neat and obscure, but I digress.
Anyway, some more misfortunes befall them, apparently, and they end up without the normal tarps they’d need to spell out the message…so they decide to use dead bodies (battle casualties, including or mostly their own) instead. Which works, and they even spring for an aerial shot to show it.
The first movie I thought of that fit a lot of the description was Death Race, in which Lloyd Bridges* commands a Mk V Panther** (repainted Sherman) lost in the North African desert. Now that is some movie!
*Looks like he picked the wrong time to quit sniffing glue!
**Which didn’t enter service until the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, after the Axis had been kicked out of North Africa.
