ICE COLD IN ALEX
(Warner Bros-Associated British) Y Cert. [CE COLD IN ALEX is the beatific vision of lager in dew-dimmed glasses which Captain Anson, R.A.M.C. (John Mills) vows to realise as, with three companions, he coaxes a decrepit ambulance back from Axis-encircled Tobruk via the Qattara depression. It’s a long haul, and it has its ups and downs, but these are strictly physical. Ice Cold in Alex achieves no emotional heights and plumbs no profundities, and if there is an agreeable residue of desert salt in the dialogue there are passages that, for banality, would scarcely bear repeating aloud. But on its chosen level-action, excitement and deftly manipulated sus-pense-it works out pretty creditably for all. concerned. I’d have been prepared to dispense with Sylvia Syms whose presence (as a nursing sister) seemed an irrelevant and unnecessary complication, but Mills, Harry Andrews and Anthony Quayle were a workmanlike and satisfying trio-the last, indeed, was rather better than competent in a carefully realised portrait of an ersatz South African. And the photography, much of it shot on the spot (special thanks to the United Kingdom of Libya), was invariably telling and dramatic in closeup, long shot and movement. J. Lee- Thompson directed.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19591030.2.40.1.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1053, 30 October 1959, Page 26
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201ICE COLD IN ALEX New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1053, 30 October 1959, Page 26
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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