Five Graves to Cairo (DVD)

From Billy Wilder, the legendary director of Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, comes this wartime espionage thriller starring Franchot Tone (Phantom Lady), Anne Baxter (Yellow Sky), Akim Tamiroff (The General Died at Dawn), Erich von Stroheim (Sunset Blvd.) and Peter van Eyck (The Wages of Fear). John J. Bramble (Tone), the sole survivor of a British tank Crew, makes his way to a desolate desert town where he is given refuge by a hotel owner (Tamiroff) and a French chambermaid (Baxter) who prepare to receive General Erwin Rommel (Stroheim) and his German staff. Posing as the hotel’s waiter, Bramble attempts to infiltrate Rommel’s inner circle and report the general’s plans to the Allies. Co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett (A Foreign Affair, Ball of Fire), based on a play by Lajos Biró (The Last Command) and featuring top-notch cinematography by John F. Seitz (The Big Clock, Calcutta), the masterful Five Graves to Cairo marks Wilder’s second U.S. directorial effort.