1958 Poster - Directed by J. Lee Thompson
The film starts with some pretty horrible, metallic music and an equally grating voice over. We are told North Africa is the battlefield of Giants, with 2 million men and 2 million stories...this is just one of them. The story was based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Landon. Captain Anson (John Mills) commands a British RASC Motor Ambulance Company in Tobruk. The German Afrika Corps are closing in and evacuation to Alexandria is ordered. During the retreat, Anson, MSM Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews), two nurses, Sister Diana Murdoch (Sylvia Syms) and Sister Denise Norton (Diane Clare), get separated from the rest. They decide to drive across the Desert to British lines in their Austin K2/Y Ambulance nicknamed Katy. An Afrikaner South African officer, Captain van der Poel (not Pole!) (Anthony Quayle), hitches a lift, carrying a mysteriously heavy back-pack. The tale is of how these four complete an arduous and dangerous journey to Alex.
Captain Anson is suffering from battle fatigue (he had been captured by the Germans and escaped, but at a cost to his mental health) and is drinking heavily. Poel's supply of gin does not help. Katy encounters a variety of dangerous, but cinematically thrilling, problems. The slow route through a Minefield; a broken suspension spring; Sister Norton's lingering death, after being shot through Katy's thin back door by German bullets; and, increasingly, the suspicion that falls on Poel (who shows the contents of his pack to the German officer, but never to the other three) - is he a Nazi spy?; all add to the tension.
Poel - object of suspicion by Pugh, Murdoch and Anson
They are warned by a British spotter plane drop that Tobruk has fallen and Jerry is ahead of them. They turn South across huge sand dunes, to the Qara Oasis. They had already left 'plucky' Brits behind at the start; at the Oasis, a frightening moment when gun-pointing Arabs surround Anson, turns out to be more 'plucky' Brits in disguise. The sudden change from Arab to upper-class British accents is well done and humorous. Filled up with fuel, off they head across the Qattara Depression - more setbacks and dangers confront them. Poel, on one of his usual jaunts with a shovel (by now the others know it's not for ablutions but signalling with his transmitter) is lit up by Katy's headlights. He runs and is sucked into a bog. The rescue scene is very well done (filmed in an awful mixture of ice-cold glutinous material back in England). Then the Ambulance has to climb a seemingly impossibly sand hill. They manage it, with some very tense film footage. By this time Murdoch has fallen for a much soberer Anson.
They reach Alex at last. Anson had promised an ice cold lager for everyone (he will also pull a lavatory chain six times to hear the sound of running water). The four of them enjoy the longed-for lager and Poel is handed over, not as a South African spy, but as a German Officer, Hauptmann Otto Lutz (a great moment is when Pugh rips his give-away fake South African identity tag off his neck, when the British MP officer is distracted).
The ice cold lager in Alex, at last
All four actors were compelling; it helped to watch an Interview with the 77 year-old Sylvia Syms, where she reminisced about the whole movie. 'Method Acting'? Much of the film was so true-to-life, because the actors were experiencing genuine hardships, however temporary they were. Sims said it was just called getting on with it...there was very little acting. It was horrible. We became those people... John Mills had to do so many 'takes', drinking the lager, that he got off the stool 'wobbly' at the end. Their love scene was reduced, so you did not see the above still in the film - more's the pity. The 'bog' scene was particularly unpleasant for the actors, especially Quayle.
The movie won the FIPRESCI Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for five more Awards. It was one of the twelve most popular movies at the British Box Office in 1958Carlsberg lager was chosen because they couldn't use a German bier; Carlsberg later used the scene for their advertisements - Still probably the best lager in the world. Silvia Syms said the ensuing Royalties were very helpful as she was only paid £30 a week for the actual filming. She was also highly complimentary about the Director, who went on to direct The Guns of Navarone.
2015 DVD
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