Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

grantss North Africa, WW2. Four British medical staff - a medical unit CO, the unit's sergeant major and two female nurses - are separated from their unit while trying to evacuate from besieged Tobruk in an ambulance. Along the way they pick up a South African infantry officer. With the Germans taking capturing most of their intended escape destinations, their options are few, and fraught with danger. Plus, the South African officer doesn't appear to be who he claims.Great movie, directed by L Lee Thompson, who went on to direct Cape Fear and The Guns Of Navarone, amongst others. At its most basic it's a pure survival movie - a handful of people in a rickety old truck against the desert. The resourcefulness they show is very interesting and engaging.Add in the fact that there's a war on, and the story adds another level of drama and danger. Then throw in the intrigue that one of the band is potentially a spy and things get really interesting.Good work all round from the main cast - John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Harry Andrews and Anthony Quayle. On the negative side, Thompson's direction is a bit clumsy at times. Some sequences just don't make sense, and overstate the importance of a remark or event. The problem probably lies with the editing, more than anything else.

clanciai What a great and amazing film this is, bringing in so many aspects on the matter of extreme hardship both at the hands of war, impossible desert conditions, gunfire, death - and beer. This all sums up with the beer, the final release, the final solution, the point of bringing it all together in a kind of universal conciliation. John Mills is always perfect but here better than ever, Harry Andrews is equally reliable, Sylvia Syms brings on the romance with a pretty face shining up the whole desert, while the most interesting character is made by Anthony Quayle (whose memorial day it is today), an always interesting and masterful character player, who adds to the interest of every great film he is in. The final crown of this film is that it is a true story.I saw it the first time forty years ago and had forgotten almost everything except the great final ordeal in the Quattara depression, a drama in itself, bringing on the ultimate solution to every impossible and overwhelmingly trying task - just do it all over again.As a human study in how even the most diametrically opposed people are brought together by the mere trials of fate and under extreme conditions, it's a universal lesson about surviving and carrying on with no good spirits lost but rather the contrary - considerably improved by a lesson for life.That's Anthony Quayle's final words - it has been a great experience, as he is carried further on to unknown lands by his own unknown fate, while he will always keep his friends in good memory as they will never forget him - in a kind of mutual thankfulness between enemies, as they learned their only real enemy was the desert, the worst and severest enemy of all, which they conquered.

james_guest An interesting comment by several reviewers - e.g. kitsilanoca-1 - is that the cast were not prima donnas. When Sir John Mills died his co-star in this film Sylvia Sims said that the whole cast was UNcomplaining about conditions. They had all just been through the war. Anthony Quayle for instance had been in the Special Operations Executive, the forerunner to the SAS, in Albania organising resistance. They were prepared to accept discomfort and even hardship in exactly the same way as any member of the crew. An attitude that was with them the whole of their lives. It may be this that makes the film so real and gritty.

llareggub Very few movies teach one any worthwhile practical skills, but I must say, Ice Cold gave a very valuable lesson. Some years ago, a friend and I drove an ancient London Bread Van through the middle of the Australian desert, from The Alice to Hall's Creek. When we were inevitably hung up on one of the sand dunes, I remembered the scene in this movie, took out the plugs, inserted the crank handle, and wound her out of the hole. It may have saved two young and stupid hippies' lives, it certainly saved our face, and gave us something to drink on when we reached civilisation, if that is what Hall's Ck is.By the way, the rest of the movie is one of those quiet British masterpieces that they used to do so well. John Mills does not defeat the Afrika Corps single handed, in fact he has a full time job beating his own demons. For that, he is much closer to the sort of hero to which I can relate than John Rambo. Tony Quale is near perfect, and Harry Andrews is masterful. Joan Sims provides another unique viewpoint, a sympathetic female lead in a war movie, actually in the action; although I must say I would have done the American thing and bitch-slapped her when she took her hands off the crank!