Rent Ice Cold in Alex (1958)

A British Classic - Ice Cold in Alex review by GI

One of the great British war films not only of the 1950s but arguably ever made. Less a combat film and more a survival adventure film set in 1942 with John Mills as the PTSD suffering Captain Anson who along with Harry Andrews as a Sergeant Major, Sylvia Syms as a military nurse are left behind enemy lines and forced to try to make it to safety in a ramshackle ambulance across the North African desert . On the way they pick up a South African officer played by Anthony Quayle. The film is full of intrigue and tension and captures the harshness of the desert (the real enemy as Quayle's character calls it) and the struggles of the characters in crossing it. The war setting simply adds to the sense of ever present danger and risk of failure. This is one of many great performances from Mills arguably his best here and a true British classic film that every film fan should see, and see again. The final bar scene is now iconic. This is one of those films that makes you stay in love with cinema.

Desert War. - Ice Cold in Alex review by Steve

Widely loved adventure set in North Africa in WWII, with a ragbag group of Brits trying to drive across the desert to Alexandria in a beat up old ambulance, in the company of a Nazi spy. It's an episodic film of many rousing set pieces, including the struggle in the quicksand, and especially the cranking of the van up a hill backwards. Twice.

John Mills plays the sort of competent officer who ends up taking all the risks, but is now wrecked on fear and booze. Anthony Quayle is the giant, booming German posing as a South African ally. Sylvia Syms is probably best remembered for this role as the army nurse. Harry Andrews is the phlegmatic, reliable Sergeant Major.

As an ensemble, the four characters have become legends of British cinema. But although this is a war story, it is really about rapprochement which probably reflected attitudes in 1958 more than 1941. The four survive the challenge of their hostile environment as a team, and Mills' war trauma can only be alleviated by this harmony.

The film is visually memorable for the arrangement of the actors against the landscape. Which is as iconic as any John Ford western. The story moves forward at top speed and J.Lee Thompson squeezes all the suspense out of each crisis. And when the four finally have their glasses of Carlsberg lined up on a bar in Alex, no beer has ever looked as irresistible.