Five Graves to Cairo Overview:

Five Graves to Cairo (1943) was a War - Thriller/Suspense Film directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Charles Brackett.

SYNOPSIS

The Sahara heats up as Allied spies try to outwit "Desert Fox" Rommel in this political thriller ably helmed by WIlder. Tone takes refuge in an oasis hotel run by Tamiroff just after the Afrika Korps rumbles through. He assumes a dead hotel waiter's identity, who also happens to have been a spy for Rommel. The intelligent Wilder-Brackett screenplay keeps things bouncing along with intense suspense and a dash of humor.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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Academy Awards 1943 --- Ceremony Number 16 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Art DirectionArt Direction: Hans Dreier, Ernst Fegte; Interior Decoration: Bertram GrangerNominated
Best CinematographyJohn SeitzNominated
Best Film EditingDoane HarrisonNominated
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Five Graves to Cairo BlogHub Articles:

Five Graves to Cairo (1943) and The Desert Fox

By 4 Star Film Fan on Nov 10, 2020 From 4 Star Films

For modern audiences especially, the movie’s opening crawl gives us a bit of helpful context. It’s June, 1942.? Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps was pounding the Brits back toward Cairo and the Suez Canal. His notoriety as a tactician and “The Desert Fox” is a... Read full article


Five Graves to Cairo

By Amanda Garrett on Apr 22, 2017 From Old Hollywood Films

Today I'm reviewing the World War II thriller, Five Graves to Cairo (1943), starring Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, and Erich von Stroheim. This article is part of The Franchot Tone Blogathon hosted by Finding Franchot. Old Hollywood leading man Franchot Tone had one of his best roles in the World... Read full article


Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

By Beatrice on Sep 19, 2014 From Flickers in Time

Five Graves to Cairo Directed by Billy Wilder Written by Billy Wilder and Charles?Brackett based on the Lajos Bir? play Hotel Imperial 1943/USA Paramount Pictures Repeat viewing/TCM DVD Billy Wilder’s second directorial effort has little of his characteristic humor or cynicism. ?It is, ho... Read full article


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Quotes from Five Graves to Cairo

Field Marshal Rommel: [to Mouche] I don't like women in the morning. Go away!


Cpl. John J. Bramble: [to Farid] You're talking through your fez!


Field Marshal Rommel: [to the British officer-prisoners] I gave you 20 questions, gentlemen. That is question 21.


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Facts about Five Graves to Cairo

In this film, when Rommel (Erich von Stroheim) says to Mouche (Anne Baxter) that her trial will not be conducted under German law in order "to show you we are not the barbarians you think - according to your own law, the Code Napoleon", this is, according to Leonard Rubinstein in his book 'The Great Spy Films', a reference to von Stroheim's character Rauufenstein in La grande illusion. Moreover, according to the Virgin Film Guide, Otto Preminger's POW Camp Commandant character Colonel Oberst von Scherbach in Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder's other WW II movie) is also a play on Erich von Stroheim's similar character Captain von Rauffenstein in Jean Renoir's, La grande illusion.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
According to the book 'The Great Spy Films' by Leonard Rubinstein, " . . . this film was released in early 1943 shortly after the British victory at El Alamein in North Africa and incorporated some footage from that battle in its closing scenes, besides providing an imaginative explanation for that success."
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