1943 Directed by Billy Wilder
The British Army, retreating ahead of victorious Rommel, leaves a lone survivor on the Egyptian border who finds refuge at a remote desert hotel. He is helped by the hotel's owner, despite protest from the French chambermaid, afraid of the imminent arrival of Rommel and the Germans. John assumes the identity of the recently deceased waiter to survive.
Franchot Tone Anne Baxter Akim Tamiroff Erich von Stroheim Peter van Eyck Fortunio Bonanova Philip Ahlm Roger Creed Hans Moebus Leslie Denison Bud Geary Frederick Giermann Otto Reichow Art Gilmore Ian Keith Miles Mander Fred Nurney Konstantin Shayne Kenneth Anspach John Erickson Clyde Jackman Bill Mussetter Peter F.U. Pohlney John Royce Sam Waagenaar
Cinco tumbas al Cairo, De vijf geheimen van de woestijn, Cinco Covas no Egito, Ørkenens hemmelighed, Tie Kairoon, Les cinq secrets du désert, Kataskopoi tou Alamein, Öt lépés Kairó felé, I cinque segreti del deserto, Piec grobów na drodze do Kairu, Vägen till Cairo, Пять гробниц по пути в Каир, Les 5 Secrets du desert, Fünf Gräber bis Kairo
Action! - Three Auteurs: The Witty and Eclectic Mr. Wilder
Technically speaking, Billy Wilder's dive into the much serious, thrilling world as a director is not bad and has its good points to its credit.
Stroheim is brilliant and slightly terrifying as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, while Franchot Tone as our leading man is quite good, with good chemistry with Baxter. And the cinematography is undeniably one of the film's strongest points, particularly in the way it makes use of shadows to create a sense of suspense or cool small details like when a flashlight is dropped and the camera only focuses on the light while the rest of the frame is in complete darkness. The writing is actually rather…
A British officer is left behind enemy lines after Rommel's rapid advance in Sahara and hides out at a desert hotel, where he assumes the identity of a recently deceased employee. When German troops arrive there he tries to collect information without blowing his cover.
That's what means to be a great auteur: take what initially was planned to be a propaganda film and transform it into an exciting, enjoyable romp that holds up admirably even today. Billy Wilder's fingerprints are all over "Five Graves to Cairo", whether we are talking about the spirited dialogue or his light, but deft, directorial touch. War might be hell, but that doesn't mean that it's devoid of humor. The final twist is of…
100-word review: The time and place is 1942, Egypt. Left behind by the retreating British army, John Bramble seeks refuge in a remote desert hotel. When the Germans arrive, John goes undercover as a waiter to spy on field marshal Rommel. The screenplay is so tight, it feels as if history is rewritten rather than reimagined. Every plot detail proves relevant, and spawns an admirable 'aha' moment later. Said to be a propaganda film, it's hard to imagine Wilder took that command very serious, because the Germans gush charisma, confidence, intelligence… They are the bad guys, sure, but certainly never incompetent ones.
Lt. Schwegler: "You have a native cook by the name of Berek."
Farid: "Terek, yes sir, but he…
This early Billy Wilder film seems like wartime propaganda at first glance - and it is to a point - but it rises above this thanks to an engaging story and a keen focus on the characters to move the narrative along. It's a great set up - a British soldier finds himself stranded at an Egyptian hotel and winds up taking on the identity of a deceased waiter, who also happens to be a German spy. The film is packed with suspense, mainly arising from the situation which is full of twists and turns. The characters and their identities is key - everyone having their own agenda, which is unknown to other key characters. It's very well written with…
Within the midst of WW2, it is obvious that there was an ongoing releasement of war-based films focuses on the actual combatants at the time. Within some appearances, these tend to have a different tone from within. Many of war films can inhibit a retrospective look back into things has the events have come and gone, the combatants separated into their respected categories of victorious and defeated accordingly. "Five Graves to Cairo" in habits a different feel to thinks as its releasement occurred in 1943, intermixed within the time of war. Uniquely enough, as it was a film inspired by the events thereof, it also was the inspiration for further military events that were to come within the war, coming…
"There will be no duet today"
Corporal John Bramble (Franchot Tonet) staggers into a hotel in North Africa, half alive and only minutes ahead of German soldiers. Together with Farid (Akim Tamiroff), the owner of the establishment and Mouche (Anne Baxter), they come up with an on the fly plan for him to assume the identity of Paul Davos, a man who worked at the hotel but was recently killed in cellar cave in. Little do they know, Paul was also a double agent for the Germans, role they expect him to resume, leaving Bramble caught in the middle of a dangerous shadow game where the prize for winning is his life, and important information that could help stave off…
Most of the propaganda films made during World War II haven’t aged that well, but in Five Graves to Cairo, like Foreign Correspondent and Casablanca, the propaganda stays mostly in the background with the emphasis on a clever cat-and-mouse espionage drama.
What’s most enjoyable about the film is that while British soldier J. J. Bramble (Franchot Tone) is impersonating a dead waiter at a remote Egyptian hotel where the Germans led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Erich von Stroheim) have established their headquarters he discovers that his assumed identity was a German spy, leading him to keep up two pretenses at once. While many propaganda films present the enemy as dumb, incompetent, or cruel, Billy Wilder and co-writer Charles Brackett…
"Never ask a big man for a small favor."
Call it contrarianism, but the WWII drama Five Graves to Cairo has long been one of my favorite Billy Wilder films. I think it represents the best starring role that Franchot Tone ever had in his career, doing a wonderful job of leading the pressure-cooker thrills as British soldier J.J. Bramble, a man forced to masquerade as a waiter ("Paul Davos") in a Libyan hotel that is occupied by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Erich von Stroheim) and the German Army. Every minute is like walking a tightrope as Bramble gathers intel from the enemy - complicated by the fact that the real Davos, who was killed in a bombing shortly before…
Wilder’s sophomore effort is a WWII chamber piece laced with intrigue and ironic dialogue. He fills an Egyptian hotel with the German high command, a nervous local proprietor, a coquette chambermaid, a dead club-footed waiter, an escaped British officer, serendipitous espionage, complex alliances and mistaken identities, large wars and small wars, claustrophobic tension, and a stylized expressionist aesthetic. It’s a short move from the latticed-shadowed interiors of the Hotel Empress to the offices of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company Double Indemnity a year later, Wilder and John Seitz genre-defining noir classic. Wilder’s often kickstarted his films with iconic opening sequences. The tank-cum-hearst on autopilot crawling over existentially empty dunes, shedding the dead and dying, is the first of these.…
Billy Wilder’s 1940s on the Criterion Channel - Film 1
If you haven’t noticed it, I haven’t watched a film since June 1. And that’s because this is one of the most dreadfully dull films I’ve ever watched. It was really boring, with like 3 good scenes in it. I didn’t like it. Sorry Tarantino and Wilder.
Let’s pray I like Double Indemnity more.
🔙 The Newton Boys
🔜 The Wizard of Oz ♻️
(Also I started Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous and I’m already on episode 9 such a good show)
A key film in Billy Wilder's growth as a director and an exemplary slice of High Hollywood. Wilder's screenwriting had been honed on shiny comedies with sharp edges for the likes of Leisen and Lubitsch and for his first Hollywood directorial outing, The Major and the Minor, he stuck fairly close to this template. With Five Graves to Cairo, his second stint in the director's chair, he demonstrated how capable he was in camera choreography, in developing mood, in sustaining tension and in utilising his marvellous set to the full. Add these blossoming qualities to his and Brackett's habitually razor-sharp dialogue, a twistily clever plot and John Seitz's fantastic photography, and you have one heck of an entertaining hour and a half.
