Five Graves to Cairo

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Five Graves to Cairo ★★★ 1943

Tense WWII thriller finds British soldier John Bramble (Tone) stranded in a small desert town after the defeat of the British garrison by General Rommel's (Von Stroheim) Afrika Korps. Arab hotel owner Farid (Tamiroff) agrees to let Bramble assume the identity of a dead hotel waiter, much to the dismay of French maid Moush (Baxter), whose only interest is in getting her brother out of a German POW camp. The real waiter turns out to have been a secret Nazi spy, fortunately known to Rommel only by name, so Bramble attempts to learn where the German supply depots have been hidden (the “five graves” of the title)—that is, unless Moush decides to betray him to win her brother's release. Based on the play “Hotel Imperial” by Lajos Biro. 97m/B VHS . Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Erich von Stroheim, Akim Tamiroff, Peter Van Eyck, Fortunio Bonanova, Miles Mander, Konstantin Shayne, Leslie Denison, Ian Keith, Frederick Giermann, Fred Nurney; D: Billy Wilder; W: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett; C: John Seitz; M: Miklos Rozsa.