Save your money for something good and enjoyable

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I remember seeing this movie as a kid on Channel 9 in NYC as part of their Million Dollar Movie series. They always showed the same movie various times for one week. I thought it was great when I was a kid, 9 or 10, and have loved seeing it a few times over the years. My old friend sent me a email saying he saw this great movie and did I ever see it. I felt like the cat that swallowed the canary. Tone is one of our great actors but many don't know his name. Some time after seeing this movie I saw him on the Ben Casey MD TV Show. I knew it was him although he looked different. My wife said her mother loved Tone but my wife had never seen his photo. It's good to have IMDb !

I watched this film after reading several positive reviews of it. My expectations were raised, but watching it was a big disappointment. As an average little suspense story, it is OK, not particularly thrilling and with a rather simple storyline.Why do some people praise Franchot Tone for his acting? Balderdash! This "Englishman" doesn't even have an English accent. But apart from that, he only manages to get the job done in a sort of uninspired way (Imagine what Bogart could have done with the role!). His portrayal of a meek, cringing, club-footed waiter is so unconvincing as to be almost laughable.The Turner Classic Movies Network showed this movie as an example of a portrayal of Arabs in a positive light. Gasp! I can't believe somebody down there at TCM considers the character Fareed as a positive image. He's all cowardice, hand-wringing, forever flustered and running in circles, begging not to be hurt, in sharp contrast to the brave Englishman, the tough French woman and the strutting Germans. He borders on being a comic character, certainly a minor one who merely adds local colour and shows how superior the Europeans are. The only thing positive about his image is that he is working against the Germans, although he's pretty much forced into that position after the single act of hiding the Englishman behind the bar when the Germans arrive; afterwards he keeps begging the Englishman to go away and muttering to himself in a trembling voice about being shot against the nearest wall. The TCM presenter thought the Englishman's comment, "You're a great man, Fareed," was a great moment in American cinema, but in fact Fareed had done nothing wonderful at all, simply having opened a drawer and happening to notice that its newspaper lining had a familiar name on it. The Englishman called him great just out of his own excitement, meaning nothing whatsoever about the character of Fareed. It was a complete non-moment.Most reviewers admit that, being made in 1943, it has propaganda elements. But the truth is that it's much worse than that, dealing in the barest stereotypes, so bad as to be cartoonish. An Italian general can't stop singing opera arias and shrinks like a sullen, scolded child when the Germans put him in his place for stepping out of line. The French chambermaid is pretty and offering to trade sex for favours (was that supposed to be a French accent Anne Baxter was speaking with?). The Germans are arrogant and dominating. The English officers are easy-going and likable. The Arab is timorous and cowardly.

An extremely interesting plot becomes tedious at best in this 1943 film. British officer Franchot Tone finds himself on a remote part of the Egyptian desert with proprietor Akim Tamiroff and maid Anne Baxter, the Nazis soon arrive and Tone makes believe that he is a waiter at the hotel who had been killed earlier in a bombing. The irony is that the waiter was working for the Germans.Rommel arrives at the hotel and is well-played by Erich Von Stroheim, who even looked old in 1943.The film suffers because it becomes way too talky and the action doesn't pick up until the very end. Baxter's ultimate sacrifice was not played well here. There needed to be more excitement, especially at that phase of the story.

Billy Wilder's second US directorial effort is a brilliant anti-war film that skips the preaching/morale boosting of other war films of the time while having the chutzpah to not only cast Erich Von Stroheim, but to cast the famed director as the still living Erwin Rommel. It's an outrageous move by Wilder but one that works! After a very creepy opening scene of a British tank drifting recklessly through the desert sands, it's sole survivor (Franchot Tone) falls out and ends up hiding out in a broken down desert hotel run by Anne Baxter and Akim Tamiroff. Field Marshall Rommel just happens to be on his way...Tone soon goes undercover as part of Rommel's entourage. The results are scary and satiric at the same time, both of which would become constants in the rest of Wilder's filmography. Tone is exceptional as is Baxter. Tamiroff is a bit hammy (as always) but Von Stroheim is wickedly good. FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO is one of the best films of the 1940s.