I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

best movie i've ever seen.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Hey folks, In over 60 years of watching American films, I had never heard of this 1955 film. When I recently read about this film and learned it was to be shown on Turner Classic Movies, I was looking forward to watching it for the first time. From my youth I have been interested in the establishment of the Israeli nation, so I was really expecting to find a great story in this film which was apparently the first film produced by Israel.Sadly, the film simply does not tell a good story. It may seem unfair to compare this film to "Exodus" which was released in 1960, but "Exodus" really did tell a great story. This film contained four small vignettes within it where each vignette described a brief story about each of the four main characters. The four vignettes were not good stories on their own, and they did not come together to make a good story from the sum of their parts.I know a lot of folks have expressed how good they thought this film was, but I have to wonder if many of these folks may sympathetic to the birth of Israel and thinking more with their hearts than their minds. I, too, have long been sympathetic with the birth of Israel, but this film simply did not do well at telling that story. "Sword In The Desert" from 1949 tells a much better story about the refugees' struggle to enter Palestine, and "Exodus" tells a much better story which goes beyond that of "Sword In The Desert."Best wishes,Dave Wile

There are not many films made about Israel birth. I won't add many things to what have already said the other users, except no one of them have talked about George Sherman's SWORD IN THE DESERT, starring Jeff Chandler, back in the 50's. I have it in my library and have not seen it since a while now, so I won't compare the two features. Say which is better than the other. I just say that this one, the Israeli, looks like a British or European film; it is directed by Thorold Dickinson, a director from UK. Another British could have made it: Lewis Gilbert, Guy Green, Ronald Neame...It looks like a UK film because of the story, filming, characterization, music score. Yes I think of a British feature.But it is a really good movie, with interesting characters. The US industry would have made a quite different film. I can't explain more.But, again, there are no many films about Palestine in the late 40's, and the war of independence. Only this one, SWORD IN THE DESERT, CAST A GIANT SHADOW and of course EXODUS !!!A real gem.

This is a movie that focuses on the forming days of Isreal, during the war for independence, in 1947. That war has ended but not that much have changed really, from the events and thoughts depicted in this movie and the ones that are still being actual this present day and time.It's by no means a great movie though but this is foremost due to its quality. It obviously had some low production values and it seems like one of this movie that got made by 1 director, one cameraman and one guy handling the sound. The picture and sound quality itself is also quite poor. Of course the movie is over 50 years old already, so the picture and sound of it haven't improved really obviously. But you can tell really that even back in those days, the picture and sound quality for this movie were below par at the time of production.The movie is pro-Isreali of course and can therefore be also seen as a propaganda piece. It's not also very objective but it's nothing too bad or distracting really. Some of if story elements are obviously thrown in for the 'good' Jewish cause but none of it distracts from the movie its main story.Not that the main story is being told that well either really. The movie is quite messy at times with its story-telling and it doesn't always flow well enough. At points it's even terribly dragging, such as with that whole thing with the Rabbi in the hospital. The movie obviously still had some good ideas and with some more time and money it would had surely turned out to be a better movie.But all criticism aside, it's still a good movie. It tells a good story and in its perspective it's quite an achievement as well, as a whole. Despite the fact that its far from a perfect movie I can understand why it's being considered somewhat of an Isreali classic.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

...is the story of a group of Israeli soldiers who have been sent to guard an outpost (the "Hill 24" of the title) overlooking a strategic valley. The time is 1948, at the end of the "War of Liberation." This four-person unit's job is simple: hold the position during the night, then put up the Israeli flag in the morning so the UN and the combatant's representatives can mark the position as Zionist territory. But before they can reach the hill, there is a long truck ride during which each unloads why they are fighting for Israel. And like "The Canterbury Tales", these stories are the point of the film. The first is about Edward Mulhare's character, an Northern Irish police officer who worked for the British in the Palestinian Mandate. We follow his investigation of a concentration-camp survivor who is in Palestine to kick the British out, and how Mulhare falls in love with the guy's architect student girlfriend. The next story is that of an American Jew who came to the Holy Land as a tourist, then became a Haganah or Irgun fighter in East Jeruselem. He is wounded, loses his willingness to fight in an ad-hoc field hospital, then regains it after getting a pep talk from a rabbi(!) The girl of the outfit (who I think is a Druze) was his nurse, so she doesn't spew her bio. Finally, there is this wiseacre Eastern European Jew who recounts how he ran into an ex-SS concentration-camp officer out in the desert while fighting Arab League soldiers. I cannot reveal what happens to them once the reach Hill 24, but I can say it is very similar to the old Humphry Bogart movie "Sahara." "Giv'a 24 Eina Ona" really reminds me of Algeria's first film, Gillo Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers," in that both are films of struggle, and in both good foreign actors are used. The American afaid of subtitled films will be relieved that most of "Hill 24" is in English. Certainly it is a propaganda film, but there are worse bits of cinema people can waste their time on. ("Nekromantik," anyone?)