Ice Cold in Alex (1958)

Ice Cold in Alex is a British war film first released in 1958, directed by J. Lee Thompson.  The film is based on a novel by Christopher Landon and stars John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle, Harry Andrews and Diane Clare.  It has also been released under the title: Desert Attack.  Our overall rating for this film is: excellent.


Tobruk, 1942.  With German forces encroaching further into North Africa, a battle-weary English officer, Captain Anson, is ordered to escort two nurses, Diana Murdoch and Denise Norton, to the British lines in Alexandria.  Accompanied by Sergeant Major Tom Pugh, Anson and the nurses manage to leave the town in an old army ambulance just before it comes under attack from German troops.   A short while later, they meet a South African soldier named Van der Poel who persuades Anson to give him a lift in exchange for a few swigs of gin.   No sooner has the group navigated its way through a minefield than it is spotted by a convoy of German tanks.  Anson panics and tries to make a break for it, but the German soldiers open fire, fatally wounding Denise.   Thinking that the nurse is merely injured, the Germans allow the ambulance to continue on its way.  With their supplies of water and petrol running low, the group ends up having to make a hazardous crossing through a region of marshland.  It is at this point that the resources of the group are tested to the limit and Pugh’s suspicions about Van der Poel are confirmed...

Ice Cold in Alex stands head and shoulders above most British war films and even gives comparable Hollywood blockbuster productions a good run for their money.   More a psychological drama than a conventional action-oriented war film, it shows how four disparate individuals manage to cohere into an effective team, and thereby survive the series of seemingly insurmountable challenges they encounter as they cross the deserts of North Africa in WWII.  As individuals they will surely die; as a group, they may survive, but only if they can overcome their fears and prejudices.   Director J. Lee Thompson embellishes Christopher Landon’s novel of the same title with some nerve-wracking set-pieces, one of which (the nocturnal bog rescue) is filched wholesale from H.G. Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (1953).

Virtually all of the action revolves around the four main protagonists, something that gives the film an incredibly tight focus and helps to make it one of the most compelling films of its genre.  John Mills lives up to his reputation as one of Britain’s finest screen actors with his portrayal of a distinctly worse-for-wear officer who ends up fighting on two fronts.  Not only must his character overcome the plethora of crises that befall his group as they try to cross the desert (in a clapped out army ambulance), but also his own inner demons, not least of which is a slight touch of dipsomania.  This was something of a groundbreaking role for Mills, who had hitherto been cast as the epitome of British sang froid in the face of adversity in numerous war films.  Mills’ portrayal of a man struggling to hold it together is matched by an equally gripping performance from Anthony Quayle, who manages to exude heroism and subtle menace in pretty well every shot.   Sylvia Syms and Harry Andrews complete the fab foursome admirably with their equally convincing depiction of stoicism and resilience, whilst bringing a touch of glamour and humour to the proceedings.

One of Britain’s most versatile filmmakers, J. Lee Thompson won recognition early in his career with his social realist dramas but it was Ice Cold in Alex (winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1958 Berlin Film Festival) that established his international reputation and led him to being invited to direct the epic war film The Guns of Navarone (1961).   Thompson’s keen visual sense and flair for suspenseful drama are very much in evidence in Ice Cold in Alex, most notably in the meticulously executed action sequences, which are staged, shot and edited in a way that builds the tension to an almost unbearable pitch.  Yet this is much more than just an action film.  Thompson also allows plenty of space for the characters to breathe and establish themselves as real people, reacting in different ways to the obstacles that come their way.  Ice Cold in Alex is survival drama at its most nail-biting and absorbing, yet the film is also a resounding celebration of Britishness, evoking the virtues that defined Britain during WWII (decency, courage and bloody-minded resolve) more unashamedly than perhaps any other war film.   No wonder Hitler and his lot lost the war, when they had plucky little things like John Mills and Sylvia Syms to put them in their place.

© James Travers 2010

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