J. Lee Thompson would go on to direct some classic films like The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear, but Ice Cold in Alex is perhaps a triumph for its sheer simplicity and avowed by Western Desert veterans as being realistic to the conditions they faced during World War II. It's a story about the 'enemy within' and humanity prevailing. The characters, a quaternity against the elements, are all very well acted and give a real sense of physical exhaustion, toruous heat, and impending danger. You'll accompany them in their thirst quenching deliverance by the end.

This film I saw when it first came out (yikes) as young teen. On reviewing as an OAP, it holds up quite well. In fact it probably was more understandable now than then! The simple story of a few refugees from Tobruk trying to outpace the German advance to El Alamein in the Desert War in 1941 is well told, if a little thin. The location work is excellent (at a time when UK films did not go very far afield very often - see the execrable 'Long, Short and the Tall!), the characters well drawn and acted, if a little unbelievable (especially Mills and Quayle), the writing quite sparse and the direction unobtrusively good. The final scenes in the bar have been overused but they work in the film. Pity the plot was a little flimsy and John Mills was too old for the part - he leaves a much younger man in Tobruk, who apparently went through the last war (WW1) - which does detract from the authenticity. But it is a film that modern filmmakers could study to see how WW2 was actually portrayed in a realistic fashion shortly afterwards!

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)

This classic movie is possibly the best of its genre. Very simple and straightforwardly told story, well acted by all its cast. John Mills as Captain Anson gives his usual dependable performance ably supported by that tower of strength Harry Andrews. Sylvia Sims (so unassuming in her beauty) holds her own among the testosterone of the male actors. (There is another female but she does not last long!!) Anthony Quayle was a terrific actor - I found him memorable in one of the Gordon Scott Tarzan movies (Greatest adventure I think) as a thoroughly odious villain and he is no less memorable here. The setting is the desert campaign of the second world war and though it is set in such a vast landscape it manages to be a very intimate film thanks to the superb direction of J Lee Thompson. The final scene in the bar is a classic one - it almost created a cliché. Brilliant and can be watched again and again I have seen it several times over the years and it always enthralls me.