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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).

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 ... 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 Biró 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,... Read full article

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Five Graves to Cairo Quotes:

Field Marshal Rommel: We shall take that big fat cigar out of Mr. Churchill's mouth and make him say Heil.
Field Marshal Rommel: [to the officers seated at the breakfast table] Rice pudding in Egypt - you never know if it's raisins - or flies!
Field Marshal Rommel: [to the British officer-prisoners] I gave you 20 questions, gentlemen. That is question 21.
Lt. Schwegler: [checking his guidebook entry about the hotel] You have a native cook by the name of Berek.
Farid: [nervous] Terek, sir. Terek. Yes, sir. But he ran away this morning. With the British to Alexandria.
Lt. Schwegler: [checking the guidebook] You have a wife.
Farid: Oh, yes, sir. Yes. But *she* run away. Yes, sir.
Lt. Schwegler: With the British to Alexandria?
Farid: [sadly] No, sir. With a Greek to Casablanca.
Field Marshal Rommel: [to Mouche, as she serves him coffee in bed] Your hands are neat - why isn't the spoon?
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Five Graves to Cairo Facts
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.
The town in the movie, Sidi Halfaya (where the hotel is situated), is not actually a real place in Egypt. There is a place called the Halfaya Pass (aka Hellfire Pass) in Egypt, which was a region which was involved in World War II's North African war. The village town Sidi Halfaya in this movie was actually a large set built at a location near the city of Indio in Riverside County, California.
This film was exhibited in the New York City Film Forum program "Von Stroheim" between June 25 - July 8, 1999 as well as the New York City Film Forum series "Billy Wilder: 85 Years an Enfant Terrible" between May 14 - 15, 1991.
On 13 December 1943, about just over six months after this film was first released in the USA, this movie's stars Anne Baxter and Franchot Tone reprized their characters of Mouche and Corporal John J. Bramble from this movie for a radio broadcast of a Lux Radio Theatre show.
On the first day that director Billy Wilder's hero, Erich von Stroheim arrived on set, Wilder ran to the wardrobe department to welcome him. He said: "This is a very big moment in my life . . . that I should now be directing the great Stroheim. Your problem, I guess, was that you were ten years ahead of your time." Von Stroheim replied: "Twenty."
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