Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

 

Five Graves to Cairo is a suspense-filled delight. Set in North Africa during World War II, it sets up an intriguing narrative. The lone survivor of a German attack on a British tank must determine whether or not to remain in hiding to garner military intelligence (and save his own life) or attempt to assassinate Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (and possibly save the lives of thousands). Franchot Tone is British Army Corporal. John J. Bramble, who has made his way through the desert to the Empress of Britain hotel, run by Farid (played by the great Akim Tamiroff) and staffed now only by a Frenchwoman, Mouche (played by Anne Baxter with an accent that seems tough to maintain). When Rommel and his troops arrive at the hotel, Farid and Mouche help to pass Bramble off as Paul Davos, a former waiter at the hotel who has vanished. Of course, this being a Billy Wilder film, there are some amusing complications. Davos was Greek and had a clubfoot. Oh, and he was a German spy, a fact that Bramble learns from Rommel himself. Bramble has to rely on Farid and Mouche to keep his secret, but Mouche has her own plans to ask Rommel to get her brother released from a concentration camp and has little interest in helping the British, given what she perceives as their abandonment of the French at Dunkirk. The suspense over whether Bramble will be discovered only gets heightened in the sequence involving the theft of a gun from an Italian general traveling with Rommel and from the arrival of a group of British POWs, one of whom was a former guest of the hotel and knew Davos. There’s also the problem of Lieutenant Schwegler (Peter van Eyck), who is charmed by Mouche and may help her with the issue concerning her brother’s release (and who discovers Davos’ body in the hotel cellar during an air raid). Wilder always did know how to complicate a plot to keep the audience intrigued. Rommel is played to the hilt by Erich von Stroheim; he truly steals the film, and it’s difficult to concentrate upon the other actors when he’s in a scene. The moments when Rommel asks his prisoners to ask him twenty questions is a particular highlight. The enigmatic title comes from the five locations where Rommel, pretending to be an archaeologist, had supplies buried in 1935 in anticipation of the war’s outbreak. Bramble’s discovery of its meaning is another tense sequence in the film. If there is one small complaint to make about this high-quality film, it’s the lack of subtitles for the German spoken at various times in the film. Otherwise, Five Graves to Cairo is an outstanding example of the ability of the Hollywood studio system to craft genre films and films like this that cross over several genres.

Oscar Nominations: Best Black-and-White Cinematography, Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Interior Decoration, and Best Film Editing