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Ice-Cold in Alex
Directed by	J. Lee Thompson
Produced by	W.A. Whittaker
Written by	Christopher Landon (novel & screenplay) T.J. Morrison
Starring	John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle
Music by	Leighton Lucas
Cinematography	Gilbert Taylor
Editing by	Richard Best
Distributed by	Pathé
Release date(s)	June 24, 1958
Running time	124 mins
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
IMDb profile

Ice-Cold in Alex (1958) is a British film based upon the book of the same name by British author Christopher Landon, who also wrote the screenplay. Directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring the late Sir John Mills, the film was a prizewinner at the Berlin International Film Festival, is frequently shown on television, and is also available on video and DVD.

A recut version of the film — 48 minutes shorter than the original — was released as Desert Attack in 1961 in the US.

A British base is attacked by the German Afrika Korps in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. During the resulting evacuation, MSM Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews) and nurses Diana Murdoch (Sylvia Syms) and Denise Norton (Diane Clare) — the crew of the Austin K2 ambulance, called 'Katy' — become separated from their unit and are forced to flee cross country. With them are Captain Anson (John Mills), suffering from battle fatigue and a virtual alcoholic, and an Afrikaans-speaking South African officer Captain van der Poel (Anthony Quayle), who carries a suitcase he seems very attached to.

Anson motivates himself by thinking of the cold lager he will order when they finally reach the safety of Alexandria, Egypt — the "Alex" of the title. En route, the group meets with various obstacles. Twice the group encounter parties of Afrika Korps soldiers, but van der Poel, who speaks German, is able to talk the Germans into allowing them to go on their way. The second time, however, they seem reluctant, until he shows them the contents of his suitcase.

Suspicious, Pugh follows van der Poel when he heads off into the desert with his case and a spade (supposedly to dig a latrine). Pugh thinks he sees an antenna. Another night, they decide to use Katy's lights to see what van de Poel is really up to. He panics, blunders into some quicksand, and loses the case, though not before Anson and Murdoch see that it contains a radio set. They drag him to safety and sedate him until they can decide what to do. They had become friends with the now-unmasked German spy during their journey.

When they reach Alexandria, they make their way to a bar, where Anson orders a beer. But before they have drunk their first round, a Royal Military Police officer arrives to arrest van der Poel. Anson orders him to wait. He tells van der Poel that if he gives his real name, he will be treated as a prisoner of war, rather than as a spy (which would mean he could be executed). van der Poel admits to being Otto Lutz, an engineering officer with the 21st Panzer Division. Pugh notices that Lutz is still wearing fake dog tags and rips them off before the police see them. This is the only point in the film when the continuity breaks down: as they drive into the square a 1956 Morris Minor can be seen; and as Van der Poel/Lutz leaves, a Series 2 Land Rover and a Renault Fregate are in the frame.

• John Mills: Capt. Anson
• Sylvia Syms: Sister Diana Murdoch
• Anthony Quayle: Captain van der Poel/Hauptmann Otto Lutz
• Harry Andrews: MSM Tom Pugh
• Diane Clare: Sister Denise Norton
• Richard Leech: Capt. Crosbie
• Liam Redmond: Brigadier (DDMS)
• Peter Arne: British Officer at Oasis
• Alec Guinness^{[citation needed]}

• The final scene, in which Mills' character finally gets his glass of lager, was reportedly filmed some weeks after the rest of the film, at Elstree Studios. Real lager had to be used to 'look right', and Mills had to drink numerous glassfuls until the shots were finished, and was "a little 'heady'" by the end.
• It was said by Sylvia Syms that (Danish) Carlsberg was chosen because they could never have been seen to be drinking a German lager. In fact the beer referred to in the original novel is "Rhinegold", which although not German, certainly has German connotations.
• Scenes from the film were used in one example of a wider late-1980s television advertising campaign for the German Holsten Pils lager. Each advertisement mixed original footage from a different old film (another example was The Great Escape) with new "humorous" material starring British comedian Griff Rhys-Jones and finishing with the slogan "A Holsten Pils Production". In retaliation, rival Carlsberg simply lifted the segment in which Mills contemplates the freshly-poured lager in the clearly Carlsberg-branded glass, before downing it in one go and declaring: "Worth waiting for!" The only alteration to the footage used in this case was to colourise the drink.

• Ice-Cold in Alex at the Internet Movie Database
• Stills and film clips from the British Film Institute archive
• Anecdote about the filming of the final (lager) scene
• Film poster showing list of stars, etc.