Five Graves to Cairo

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Five Graves to Cairo is a 1943 World War II film by Billy Wilder, starring Franchot Tone and Anne Baxter.

[edit] Plot

A British tank commander (Tone) survives a battle with Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the North African desert. He finds sanctuary in a small desert hotel owned by Farid (Akim Tamiroff). The staff consists of just Mouche (Baxter), but is augmented by "Davos", the identity that Corporal John Bramble assumes. At first hostile and cynical, Mouche gradually falls in love with the newcomer.

Complications arise when the Germans take over the hotel to use as headquarters for Field Marshal Rommel (von Stroheim). Davos is mistaken by the Germans for one of their local spies and he makes use of this fortuitous mistake to steal some vital military information, the locations of the "Five Graves to Cairo", hidden buried fuel dumps prepared before the war for the conquest of Egypt. He takes that knowledge to the British, who use it to thwart Rommel's plans.

When Bramble returns in triumph to the hotel, he is devastated to learn that the Germans had executed Mouche in his absence because she wouldn't stop saying that the British would be back. He takes the parasol he had bought for her, something she had always wanted, and uses it to provide shade for her grave.

[edit] Cast

• Franchot Tone - Corporal John Bramble / Davos
• Anne Baxter - Mouche
• Akim Tamiroff - Farid
• Erich von Stroheim - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
• Peter van Eyck - Lieutenant Schwegler
• Fortunio Bonanova - General Sebastiano

[edit] Trivia

The Germans are played by German actors and thus speak with the right accent, except for the actor who plays Rommel, who emigrated from Austria to the US at the age of 24 and whose accent occasionally slips. In this light, it is surprising that the main character, a British soldier, is played by an American actor who consistently speaks with the wrong accent.