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| Ice Cold in Alex | |
|---|---|
 British film poster | |
| Directed by | J. Lee Thompson |
| Screenplay by | Christopher Landon T. J. Morrison |
| Based on | Ice Cold in Alex 1957 novel by Christopher Landon[1] |
| Produced by | W. A. Whittaker |
| Starring | John Mills Sylvia Syms Anthony Quayle Harry Andrews |
| Cinematography | Gilbert Taylor |
| Edited by | Richard Best |
| Music by | Leighton Lucas |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Associated British-Pathé (United Kingdom) 20th Century Fox (United States) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 130 minutes (uncut)[2] 76 minutes (US 1961 Theatrical Version)[3] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
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.[4] 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.[5][6][7]
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.[Note 1] Attempting to reach British lines they encounter an Afrikaner South African officer, Captain van der Poel. Van der Poel shows 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.[1] The New York Times described the book as "an excellent escape story played out in the best Hitchcock manner."[9]
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.[10]
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.[11]
The producers had intended to shoot the location work for Ice Cold in Alex in Egypt, but they had to switch to Libya because of the Suez conflict.[citation needed]
Filming began 10 September 1957.[12]
Sylvia Syms (Sister Murdoch) said in a 2011 interview about the film that conditions during the desert shoot were so difficult it felt like they were actually in the situation the film portrays. She said: "You may find this hard to believe, but there was very little acting. It was horrible. We became those people ... we were those people". She said that today people would probably call it method acting, but added: 'We didn't know what Method Acting was, we just called it 'getting on with it'." Syms said that during the scene where the ambulance rolls backwards down the hill narrowly avoiding her, the actors assumed there would be a hawser to stop the vehicle if anything went wrong, but there was not. The actress said she was "pretty sure" Mills, Quayle and Andrews angrily upbraided director J. Lee Thompson for this risky approach. She added: "He liked to push actors a bit". The quicksand sequence was filmed in an ice cold artificial bog in an English studio (some scenes were shot at Elstree)[13] and was "very tough" on Quayle and Mills. Syms said the producers got a good deal out of her for "£30 a week", adding: "But I made a lot more when they turned it into an advert for Carlsberg". She said there are "no false heroics in it" and that she had been told by desert war veterans it is a good picture of soldiers in that theatre of war, adding: "I am proud of it".[14]
There were a number of British films being shot in Africa around this time, including No Time to Die, Nor the Moon by Night and The Black Tent.[15]
Although some sources claim that music was kept to a minimum, there is in fact a great deal of dramatic underscoring. Leighton Lucas wrote a stirring military march called "The Road to Alex", which was the main theme, and a "Romance".[16]
The film was one of the twelve most popular at the British box office in 1958 (that list included several other war related movies – The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Camp on Blood Island, Dunkirk, The Key, Carve Her Name with Pride, The Wind Cannot Read – as well as Carry On Sergeant, A Cry from the Streets, Happy Is the Bride and Indiscreet.)[17][18] Kinematograph Weekly listed it as being "in the money" at the British box office in 1958[19] and was "a huge success".[20]
The film was nominated for several awards:[4]
The film is arguably the best known credit for Sylvia Syms.[21]
A Region B/2 Blu-ray restoration of Ice Cold in Alex was released in the United Kingdom on 18 February 2018.[22] A restored region B/2 version was previously released on 11 September 2011.[23] In March 2020, the film was released on Blu-ray in region A/1 (North America) by Film Movement Classics in a five-film set called Their Finest Hour 5 British War Classics.
The final scene, in which Mills's character finally gets his glass of lager, was used in the 1980s in beer advertisements on television. The scene was reportedly filmed some weeks after the rest of the film, at Elstree. Real lager had to be used to "look right", and Mills had to drink numerous glasses full until the shots were finished, and was "a little 'heady'" by the end.[24]
Sylvia Syms has said that the Danish beer Carlsberg was chosen because they could never have been seen to be drinking a German lager, since the United Kingdom and Germany were at war during the film. The beer referred to in the original novel is Rheingold, which, despite its German name, is American.[14]
Scenes from the film were used in a late-1980s television advertising campaign for the German Holsten Pils lager. Each advertisement mixed original footage from a different film (another example was The Great Escape, 1963) with new humorous material starring British comedian Griff Rhys Jones and finishing with the slogan: "A Holsten Pils Production".[25] In retaliation, rival Carlsberg simply lifted the segment in which Mills contemplates the freshly poured lager in the clearly Carlsberg-branded glass, before downing it in one go and declaring, "Worth waiting for!" This was followed by a variation in the usual Carlsberg tagline: "Still probably the best lager in the world."[24]
I cannot recommend J. Lee Thompson's Ice Cold in Alex highly enough. It is a very entertaining, beautiful film, which has been recently restored and now released on Blu-ray. ... VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Well-handled psychological drama of British ambulance officer, two nurses, and a German soldier brought together in African desert.3 of 4 stars.
A moving account of a group of strangers surviving the odds brings out one of John Mills' best performances.3 of 5 stars.
