Ice Cold in Alex

source: Ice Cold in Alex

While all the comment before mine have covered much of the film, and the book. I cannot help but add the way i felt the fight that was going on at all times against the desert. The leaking water pump, with Tom agonizing over the crumbling carbon washer, the rear spring failure, with the heroic act by Van Der Poel of supporting the ambulance, and finally the affectionate pats as each thanks the trusty Austin K2 for bringing them safely to their destination. Harry Andrew's portrayal of the Mechanist Sergeant Major, oozing mechanical sympathy from every pore is excellent. A fine member of an excellent cast. Great films like these, as opposed to the more bang and explosion type war film, really help one understand the battle that was waged over an inhospitable land. Truly where hostilities were forgotten in the battle against the greater enemy.

A well worth watching film which avoids some of the usual escape/WWII sterotype characters. The direction is superb, and John Mills gives one of his best performances (in my opinion). All the other actors give professional performances, especially Harry Andrews and Anthony Quayle.

I have an admission. I am 36. I saw this film when I was 14. I fell in love with Sylvia Sims at that point. I had a press shot of that final bar scene on my wall, and the look on her face has entranced me to this day. Saw her at my local theatre a few years back, and time has not lessened her beauty. My wife understands, and doesn't mock - after all, I could be ranting on about Girls Aloud ( grrr... Nicola ). Anyhow, the film. It is a fantastic piece of cinema and does truly evoke the loneliness of the desert and the small things that can tip one over the edge. I read an article once about Rommel and the North African campaign where he came across a couple of wounded Tommies next to their wrecked APC. Whereas the SS would have (probably) shot them there and then, Rommel ensured the men were treated well, had their wounds tended and were dropped off at the nearest Red Cross station. War is Hell it seems but not all participants are baby killing sadists !!! Thank heavens for IMDb reviews. Parish priests don't appreciate confessions like this ! Pickles

Four people in an ambulance are struggling to cross the hot, blinding North African desert on their way from Tobruk to Alexandria. It's 1942 and Rommel's Africa Corps is just about to take Tobruk and continue its race to Egypt. There is Captain Anson (a blond John Mills), an ambulance officer stressed to the breaking point and just this shy of being an alcoholic; Sergeant Major Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews), a big, capable lifer who has been with Anson for several months and knows his weaknesses; Diana Murdoch (Sylvia Syms), a nurse who was stranded in Tobruk, who has a steady hand but has seen her friend, another nurse, die in an attack on the ambulance; and Captain van der Poel (Anthony Quayle), a strong, swaggering South African they meet in a deserted outpost. Captain Anson is persuaded to let van der Poel join them because van der Poel has three bottles of gin with him. He also carries something in a knapsack he refuses to let out of his sight. Ice Cold in Alex is one of the best of the war movies Britain produced in the Fifties. It sets up a small group of people on a tense journey through a desolate landscape in a broken-down ambulance. We get to know these people...and we begin to worry whether Captain Anson is going to lose it every time he gets close to a bottle; whether van der Poel is truly a South African or a German spy; whether it will be Sergeant Pugh, or Nurse Syms, or van der Poel who'll get killed in one of the dangerous situations they encounter. And the movie has plenty of well-directed, tense situations coming one after the other. The four of them encounter mine fields that must be crossed, sand storms, Nazi ambushes and pursuits, capture by German troops they must talk their way out of (with van der Poel coming in handy), mechanical breakdowns and quicksand. And if there is one lesson they all learn, it's to never park your vehicle on the top of a giant sand dune. The movie is unusual in that the hero is damaged goods. John Mills is excellent in portraying Captain Anson as a determined and stalwart British officer. He's even better at showing this man just a bit too eager for a drink, too quick to justify it, too close to breaking down when things don't work out. Mills was not a big man, and he has to dominate the movie next to two very big men, Harry Andrews and Anthony Quayle. Both are nearly a head taller than Mills. In one scene Mills as Anson collapses and Quayle must pick him up, carry him several steps to the rear of the ambulance and deposit him inside. This is all done in one shot. Quayle looks as if he's dealing with no more than a 50 pound bag of flour, yet Mills is definitely the one we watch during the movie. His Captain Anson may be falling apart, but he is determined to get the ambulance and its passengers to Alexandria. While he struggles to do so we can see that he's slowing pulling himself together. It's a nice performance. There also is almost no distraction from artificial romance. There is only the faintest hint of a possible relationship developing between Nurse Murdoch and Captain Anson, just a brief moonlight nuzzle and, much later, a realistic recognition of Anson's continuing demons and the difficulty of making personal plans in wartime. The movie also gives a much more subtle approach to the German enemy. At the conclusion, while the four of them are finally enjoying an ice-cold lager in an Alexandrian bar, one of them points out that, working together, they beat the desert, which was a bigger enemy than...well, you'll need to see the movie.

This film really brings out how people can overcome their differences, no matter how large or seemingly-impossible, and work together for their own survival. Anthony Quayle acted his part with perfection, staying both loyal to his own cause, AND to the common cause of survival. He did not turn anybody over to the German army despite the many opportunities, but turned each incident into an advantage that helped all concerned. Also the matter of alcoholic addiction was portrayed excellently by John Mills, and the self-realisation which led to his overcoming of the problem was quite poignant. Overall I would recommend this film as one of the classics amongst war-theme movies. It gets behind the scenes and down to the really important matter of real people and THEIR perspective of things.

I've managed successfully to avoid this movie for years more especially since easily satisfied acquaintances have, at regular intervals, urged me to see it. It's one of those things - like The Mousetrap, Phantom, Les Miz etc that are self-perpetuating so that people go to see them just because they are there rather than for any actual merit they possess. Finally, someone sent me a freebie (via a newspaper promotion) DVD and I decided to get it over with. As I suspected it is virtually interchangeable with the similar movies that the British film industry was turning out by the yard in the late fifties, no better and no worse, though in retrospect the young Sylvia Syms bore a striking resemblance to the late people's princess. She and Anthony Quayle had worked together the previous year - and with a similar lack of chemistry - in Woman In A Dressing Gown which, for some unfathomable reason, has just been reissued in the West End of London. If you like that sort of thing this is the sort of thing you'll like.

This taut, engrossing and exciting war drama is more a fascinating character study than just another WWII film. Made in the sweltering heat of the northern Sahara Desert of Libya, I found myself sitting up until 2 am to see it through to the end, enjoying every minute of it, feeling like I was experiencing every task of the events in the story along with the characters. The story tells of ambulance corps officer played by John Mills named Captain Anson, whom the war has driven to drink, who is unwillingly ordered to leave besieged Tobruk before the Germans break through and take the strategically important town over. In his ambulance he takes with him two young nurses, along with the stalwart Sergeant Major Tom Pugh played by Harry Andrews, and heads out across the desert for Alexandria in Egypt. Their journey leads them through many obstacles, and along the way they pick up the enigmatic South African army officer, Captain van der Poel (van-der-POO-el he corrects them in his distinctly Afrikaner accent) played by Anthony Quayle, who has become detached from his unit and is looking for a lift. Can they beat the elements of the desert and make it to Alexandria, where Anson knows of a certain bar that serves the ice cold lager he so longs for and promises the others? In height and build Mills is a much smaller next to big men like Andrews and Quayle, but I was very impressed with how his strong acting and personal inner character make him seem as tall and broad shouldered as the other two. I also admired how the whole cast put their all into the many no doubt very difficult scenes, obviously having to deal with the physically exhaustive work that was asked of them, the tortuous heat and sand fleas nipping at their legs. I could see they were feeling the affects and that adds to the realism of the whole film. Note even the lovely Sylvia Syms as the seemingly unshakable nurse Sister Diana Murdoch, didn't avoid having to look hot, sweaty and bothered like her male co-stars, unlike some Hollywood actresses of that time who I will not even mention. That and the ambulance must have been an oven during the whole shoot.! A truly unique film and worth the whole gripping two hours.

Ice Cold In Alex could never have been made during World War II at the time of the actual fighting. Though it benefits from location shooting in Libya where the action actually took place during the desert war. The time is after the second fall of Tobruk as the British are fleeing from the Libyan desert to regroup along the El Alamein line that General Auchinleck had staked out. John Mills is a captain with a drinking problem and he's in charge of a party of four driving an ambulance out which consists of RSM Harry Andrews and British nurses Sylvia Sims and Diane Clare. Along the way they pick up Anthony Quayle who is South African. He proves to be of invaluable assistance in getting through German lines twice and in other ways. But Quayle has a mission all his own. Coming in on the side of the Allies was a matter of considerable debate in the Union Of South Africa. Jan Christian Smuts carried the day for the Allies, but the opposition party which later imposed the apartheid policies were pro-Axis. They won the post war South African elections and held power until Nelson Mandela took over. The desert turns out to be the real enemy for this little band and they all pull together. One of the company does not make it to the end. In a way that Erwin Rommel would have liked, the Afrika Korps is not portrayed as inhuman monsters by any means. Interestingly enough in the same year Ice Cold In Alex came out, The Young Lions had a German officer machine-gunning helpless British stragglers just like this party is. Maximilian Schell was the Nazi who did the deed in that film and both of these films rank as among my favorite war films ever. The title refers to a cold beer that Mills is determined to have at a favorite bar of his in Alexandria. Ice Cold In Alex has some flawless performances by the entire cast, the desert travelers mesh very well as an ensemble group. The film ranks among the best work that all of the principal players ever did. And the filming in the actual location in Libya was able to blend some black and white newsreel footage in to the story without a seam showing. I saw this film when it first came out in theater in 1958. I was impressed with it then and even more so now.

I must confess to being biased towards this film, as I am a grandson of the author and screenwriter. It is extremely pleasing to read that this film has given a lot of pleasure to many who have seen it. Why I think the film succeeds is because it was written by a man who took part in the North African campaign, as a doctor in the RAMC, who had to deal with the human cost of war. People, and how they cope with adversity, is often more interesting than depicting warfare itself. This makes it an unusual war film for the time, to say the least. The character of Captain Anson, so ably played by John Mills, is telling for me as my grandfather sadly did have an alcohol problem later in life. On a lighter note, the terrific final scene in the bar has an amusing story attached to it - apparently, the scene had to be shot five or six times, and as nothing else looked like beer in a glass than, well, beer, poor John Mills had to keep knocking back the beers until the scene was "in the can"!