Please help ID this movie. Lili Marlene related. WWII, North Africa

Cafe Society
1

I don’t have a lot to go on. Plus, my memory could be faulty, or conflating two movies. So I’ll describe it like I remember it, without any modern interpretation.

I saw it in probably in the 70s, on Saturday afternoon movies time. So nothing newer than 1980, probably not newer than 1970. And it was probably already an old movie.

A WWII movie, set in the North Africa campaign. Opening scene. Some lone guy is driving a jeep through the desert as the credits roll. He is listening to Lili Marlene in English on the radio as he drives. Then as the credits end, he arrives, and the rest of the movie begins. I have no memory of anything else.

But one of the things I DO remember, is that the film would cut to the Germans, who were ALSO listening to Lili Marlene on the radio, but this time in German.

I remember being impressed how the song united both sides. But, are these two scenes even in the same movie?

I looked up the Lili Marlene wiki page, and the scene is truthful. Both sides loved the song, Marlene Dietrich used it as Allied propaganda. But, while the article list uses of the song in film, I don’t think it is complete. At any rate, this film wasn’t mentioned.

Any ideas?

2

Play Dirty?

3

Thank you! That’s exactly how I remembered it. I’d forgotten the dead guy, but once I saw it, yup

Well, the SD comes through again, That didn’t even take long. It’s only been bugging me for oh 40 years…

Either I’m remembering my dad telling me about the song, during the credits, or the scene intercutting both sides listening was from a different movie, or later in this one. I’ll watch for this one, maybe TCM has it.

Thanks!

4

There’s a British comedy movie from the 50s, about a dreadful concert party sent out to entertain the troops in N Africa during WW2, with a subplot in which, having got lost, they pick up a stray German prisoner who persuades them he wrote Lilli Marleen, and sells the rights to the group chancer (who only discovers the truth when it’s too late).

There are other films set in N Africa, but I’ve no idea if they fit:

Ice Cold in Alex

Sea of Sand

Desert Rats

And there was a TV series

The Rat Patrol

5

I remember Play Dirty. It’s wonderfully violent! :+1: