Alamein

Actual combat footage is used to flesh out the staged dramatics in Columbia's El Alamein. Related in flashback (a la 12 O'Clock High), the film concerns itself with the exploits of an American civilian named Banning (Scott Brady), who during WW II makes a tidy living selling tanks to the Allied troops. Through a fluke, Banning finds himself in the thick of battle. Together with a British tank crew, he stumbles upon one of Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps supply dumps (shades of Five Graves to Cairo). Now he and his comrades in arms are obliged to blow up the Nazi supplies and return to the safety of the British lines. Somehow, leading lady Rita Moreno is wedged into the otherwise all-male proceedings.