Interwar · Film · 1981
Lion of the Desert
An elderly Quran teacher leads Bedouin horsemen against Mussolini's tanks and aircraft, while a ruthless general is sent to end twenty years of Libyan resistance.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 4 places.
Stop 1: Palazzo Venezia, Rome
Furious at his generals' failures, Mussolini sends his toughest commander to finish the war in Libya.
Stop 2: Benghazi
Graziani arrives with tanks, aircraft and a plan to cut the guerrillas off from the people who feed them.
Stop 3: Jebel Akhdar
Key location
In the Green Mountain, Omar Mukhtar's horsemen ambush Italian columns and refuse every offer to surrender.
Stop 4: Suluq
Brought before the Italians after a skirmish, Mukhtar faces his enemies with the same calm he showed in the mountains.
What really happened
Italy invaded Libya in 1911, but in Cyrenaica the Senussi resistance led by Omar Mukhtar held out for two decades. In 1930 Mussolini made Rodolfo Graziani vice-governor of Cyrenaica, and he crushed the revolt with aircraft, armoured cars, a 270-kilometre barbed-wire fence along the Egyptian border and the deportation of about 100,000 people to camps on the coast, where tens of thousands died.
Mukhtar was captured in September 1931 and hanged at Suluq on 16 September in front of some 20,000 detainees. The film, with Anthony Quinn as Mukhtar and Oliver Reed as Graziani, was financed by Muammar Gaddafi's government. Italy banned it in 1982, and it was not shown on Italian television until 2009.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Lion of the Desert
- Directed by
- Moustapha Akkad
- Countries
- Libya, United States
- Languages
- English
- Released
- 1981
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Mediterranean & Africa
- Themes
- Resistance
- Combat
- Biography
- True story
