Radio review - Lux – Five Graves to Cairo (1943) ***1/2

One of Billy Wilder’s lesser known films perhaps because the lead was the unexciting Franchot Tone, who actually is pretty good. And it’s a pretty good story too (a remake of Hotel Imperial) with Tone as a British soldier cut off from his troops who finds himself forced to go undercover in a hotel occupied by the Germans. Anne Baxter is a spirited romantic lead but the best performance goes to Eric Von Stroheim as Rommel – his sardonic humour is unmistakeably Wilder (now I’ve said that I’ll probably read some article which demonstrates that Charles Brackett wrote it). Solid twists and turns – undercover stories almost always work. I especially like the way Tone made Baxter feel guilty by making up a wife and child.