World War II · Film · 1943
Five Graves to Cairo
The lone survivor of a British tank crew stumbles into a desert hotel and takes the identity of its dead waiter, only to learn the man was a German spy just as Rommel moves in upstairs.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 2 places.
Stop 1: Sidi Halfaya, Egyptian frontier
Key location
Corporal Bramble poses as a waiter in a half-empty hotel that becomes Rommel's headquarters and hunts for the secret of the five graves.
Stop 2: El Alamein, Egypt
The fate of Rommel's drive on Cairo is decided on the El Alamein line, where Bramble's secret is put to use.
What really happened
After taking Tobruk on 21 June 1942, Rommel pushed the Eighth Army back across the Egyptian frontier at Sollum and Halfaya Pass and on to El Alamein, just over 100 kilometres from Alexandria. The Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein in October and November 1942 ended that threat.
Billy Wilder made the film while the campaign was still being fought, adapting a Lajos Bíró play set in the First World War. Erich von Stroheim plays Rommel; the five secret supply dumps buried before the war are pure invention, but Axis supply lines stretched across the desert were Rommel's real weakness.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Five Graves to Cairo
- Directed by
- Billy Wilder
- Countries
- United States
- Languages
- English, German, French
- Released
- 1943
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Mediterranean & Africa
- Themes
- Espionage
