Ice Cold in Alex

Ice Cold in Alex is a 1958 British war film set during the Western Desert campaign of World War II based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Landon. Directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring John Mills, the film was a prizewinner at the 8th Berlin International Film Festival. Under the title Desert Attack, a shortened 79-minute version of the film was released in the United States in 1961. Film critic Craig Butler later referred to the shortened version as nonsensical.

Captain Anson, the officer commanding a British RASC Motor Ambulance Company in Tobruk, is suffering from battle fatigue and alcoholism. Ahead of the Axis capture of Tobruk by the Afrika Korps, Anson's unit is ordered to evacuate to Alexandria. Anson, MSM Tom Pugh and two nurses, Sister Diana Murdoch and Sister Denise Norton, become separated from the others in an Austin K2/Y ambulance nicknamed Katy. Attempting to reach British lines they encounter an Afrikaner South African officer, Captain van der Poel. Van der Poel shows Anson two bottles of gin in his pack, persuading him to accompany them to safety in Alexandria.

They encounter various obstacles, including a minefield, a broken suspension spring which van der Poel helps change, and the dangerous terrain of the Qattara Depression. In an encounter with a German motorised unit, Norton is fatally wounded by gunfire. Anson blames himself and vows not to drink any alcohol until he can have an "ice-cold lager in 'Alex'". Van der Poel, who claims to have learned German while working in German South West Africa, convinces the Germans into allowing them to continue. In a second encounter, the Germans seem reluctant to believe van der Poel until he shows them the contents of his pack.

Pugh, troubled by van der Poel's lack of knowledge of the South African Army's tea-brewing technique, spies on him when he walks off alone, supposedly to dig a latrine, and thinks he sees a radio antenna. At night, when they turn on the ambulance headlights to see what van der Poel is doing, he blunders into quicksand in a panic and submerges his pack. Anson and Murdoch confirm it contains a radio set and drag him to safety. Realising van der Poel is probably a German spy, they choose not to confront him since Katy must be hand-cranked in reverse up a sand dune escarpment and his strength is crucial to their success.

The party concludes they don't want to see van der Poel shot for espionage, and after they reach Alexandria, Anson delivers everyone's papers except van der Poel's to the Military Police check point. He reports that "van der Poel" is a lost German soldier who surrendered to them under his parole (word of honour). The MP's agree to let the party have a farewell drink with their captive before taking him into custody as a prisoner of war. They go into a bar where Anson consumes a cold beer with relish but a Corps of Military Police officer arrives before they've finished the first round of drinks to arrest van der Poel. Anson, indebted to van der Poel for saving their lives, says that if he gives his real name he'll be treated as a prisoner of war rather than executed as a spy. Van der Poel admits to being a German engineer officer. Pugh rips his fake South African dog tags off and they say their farewells, concluding they were "all against the desert, the greater enemy."

The film was based on the 1957 novel Ice Cold in Alex and its serialisation (as Escape in the Desert) in the magazine Saturday Evening Post. The New York Times described the book as "an excellent escape story played out in the best Hitchcock manner."

The screenplay contains multiple key changes from the novel, including making Anson rather than Pugh the protagonist. ABPC bought the rights and assigned T. J. Morison to collaborate on a treatment with Landon under the supervision of Walter Mycroft.

Richard Todd says he turned down a lead role because he felt the story was far fetched and he was getting tired of military roles.