Ice Cold in Alex is a really bothering, really engrossing character drama set amidst the backdrop of the sweltering deserts of North Africa during World War Two. Few films that I've seen have been able to project the intense frustration; desperation and sheer exasperation of a scenario as wrapped up in danger, humidity and tension as well as J. Lee Thompson's 1958 wartime drama does here. Here is the film wherein fully grown men can spend the majority of a long filmic runtime shirtless, yet purvey the film's integral notions of masculinity and such through leadership; teamwork and responsibility. The film, a far cry from modern standards to this extent, is never episodic nor does it ever have a tendency to drag in spite of its premise; a film that decides against utilising the nearby presence of a Nazi force as a meagre reason for antagonism; instead, relies on the distrust, animosity and character flaws inherent in the group we're following to propel the drama as well as any sort of conflict in so much each are the foils of one another.We begin in a manner already tried and tested in relation to how explorative wartime dramas can kick off; in that as with "Casablanca", we zoom in on a map of the very place the film will transpire over the next few hours: North Africa, and a North Africa buckling under the strain of conflict. The film depicts a handful of people occupying an ambulance just about large enough to carry our central characters; three men, two of whom are from two varied parts of England and a third who's South African, accompany two women, in what is broadly speaking a group of core characters designed to epitomise the conjoined war effort from both genders; all parts of Britain and its Commonwealth. Their goal is to make it to Egypt, an apparent safe haven away from the immediate wartime frontline.The war is savaging the British outposts here in the likes of Torbruk, and a camp is on the way to being destroyed thus is being evacuated by British forces. Two such people on the way out are skilled Army Mechanic Tom Pugh (Andrews) and a character more suggestive of a lead in Captain Anson (Mills), the latter of whom has a drinking problem born out of the fact he once escaped a P.O.W. camp and nearly died of thirst in the desert on the trek back. This unhappy event from prior in his life is something he drowns with the being able to swig the odd item of liquor any-which time he can. Pugh wants this addiction quashed, and the film will go to wonderful lengths to depict Anson's battle with alcoholism as the adventure comes to aid in his tackling of it. The arc is epitomised in the later line "Worth waiting for...", when the character accepts there is a time and a place for an alcoholic beverage and that it shouldn't be used as a means to kill pain nor to escape responsibility.Adding extra dramatic weight to proceedings is that aforementioned South African, an Afrikaans soldier and a Captain named Van der Poel (Quayle); a man with what appear to be good intentions and a healthy work ethic, but a character whose immediate introduction, as he towers over our Anson from the elevated position of a rock, never struck us as a particularly level-headed way to introduce him. True enough, impeccably timed later revelations add an extra dynamic to the already gripping action and veer the film down avenues all the more rewarding. Said revelation, aside from its immaculate timing in a story telling sense, is constructed with a genuine sense of cinematic thought, as Thompson captures the event through a lighting dynamic of bright meshed together with pitch black as true allegiances are revealed and exposés are made bare through a literal action of shedding light on something.Screenwriter T.J. Morrison does so well with the premise to the scenario; a singular line journey, a "road movie" if you will wherein the "road" is little but a dusty, sandy track ill-suited to motor vehicles, that he manages to keep the film from ever feeling episodic as the next barrier rears up and the next obstacle must be hurdled. The characterisation is tight, the structure of the animal rigid and the approach dogged. The director ekes out such an atmosphere born out of the conditions and ramifications everyone finds himself in, that it's hard not to be gripped the entire time.

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.

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.

This is nothing short of an excellent rendition of the travails and exploits of those gallant men who served with the 8th Army in North Africa. I feel the exploits of the infantry and Army Service Corps who withstood the fury of Rommel's Afrika Korps at Tobruk has largely been neglected by Hollywood but for a few films like 5Graves to Cairo and Sahara and was left to the British film makers to recount. The storyline is purported to be a true one but probably intertwined from accounts of multiple servicemen. It is disturbingly to life with a brilliant performance by John Mills who portrays the shell-shocked, battle-weary, disturbed ASC driver ably assisted by Anthony Quayle the German spy. Sylvia Syms is very attractive and also renders one of her best early performances. The storyline takes us thru an Ambulance unit making it from under-siege Tobruk through the great desert depression to Alexandria in 1942. The group is joined by a German spy who commands the respect of his co-travellers by his exploits. We are given to really experience the brutal shocks of war torn servicemen under fire without the Errol Flynn effect like never before. I saw this movie only recently and to my knowledge I think it is one of the best of the period and genre. Krishna Kumar Menon Chennai (Madras)