by Miguel Alejandro Marquez, Staff Writer

Film Movement has made restorations/4k quality releases of Ice Cold in Alex, The Dam Busters, and Dunkirk (1958). All of which are World War II films that show the complexity of the war, and the effects of battle on both civilians and soldiers alike. All are now available on Blu-Ray, March 23.

Ice Cold In Alex

Directed by J. Lee Thompson 
Written by Christopher Landon and J. Lee Thompson 
Starring Sir John Mills, Slyvia Syms, Anthony Quayle, and Harry Andrews
Runtime: 2 Hours and 10 Minutes 

Is this the most dramatic beer run film of all time? Maybe. This critic thinks so. 

Ice Cold in Alex is a film that has most of the gripping intensity of a typical war drama, without having any of the stuffiness of that era’s war films. We leave the atypical three-wall set, for an epic that goes through the Libyan desert. The 1958 film is a starring vehicle for Sir John Mills, an actor who is out of type, playing a character that doesn’t have any of the bravado we’ve come to expect from the knighted actor. He leaves behind his calm persona, for the role of a man who’s willing to do anything to bring a medical truck over the sand dunes. 

The film follows the exploits of Captain Anson, a man serving in World War II as a medic driver. The film tries to have a suspense-filled beginning, in which the audience is unsure whether or not the crew will be able to survive the intensity of the desert. Which is later commented upon as man’s “greatest enemy”. It’s very much like Henri-George Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear, just replacing the jungles of South America with the intensity of Nazi-occupied Libya. We leave this era’s patriotic zealotry for a drama centered around who and who you shouldn’t trust while looking for a beer in the sand dunes, all the while looking for a way out of the madness of war. 

Sir John Mills plays Captain Anson excellently. I believed whole-heartedly that this was a man on the brink of madness; scanning for landmines, Nazis, and ales in every direction. His character, his arc from a drunkard to a hero, puts emphasis on what it means to be a leader, especially when everyone is looking at everyone as a potential hazard, and/or suspect. The film’s quality would have been drastically weighted down if it wasn’t played by someone who went out of the mold of the typical war hero. His short frame, yet fiery temper adds to the message of what it means to be a hero. 

But Sir Mills’s performance isn’t the only amazing aspect of the epic. The mine scene where Captain Van Der Pol, played by Anthony Quayle, is trying to escape a perceived pressure plate, is one of the many reasons why this film was restored. I can see the sweat drip off of Quayle’s face and see the intensity in Pugh’s (Harry Andrews) eyes. At times, you could swear that you are there, right beside someone who’s stepped on a ‘landmine’. It’s scenes like these in Alex that act as rightful contenders to the stark, dramatic, nailbiting scenes in Dassin’s Rififi. A film also marked in it’s cinematic excellence and dramatic sequences. The drilling scene especially. 

Ice Cold in Alex is a underrated film that has maybe been forgotten by cineaphiles. As Captain Anson says: “Dames and mine. A lovely party.” This is a lovely film indeed. This is a must-buy. 

The Dam Busters

Directed by Michael Anderson 
Written By R.C Sheriff 
Starring Richard Todd, and Michael Redgrave
Runtime: 2 Hours and 4 Minutes 

What’s there to say about this film? It was the inspiration for the Star Wars dogfight scenes and is still seen to this day as an inspiration to modern film directors. To me, it’s a film that lives within a realm of movies that are culturally significant, but are tedious wastes of time. We start and end the film from the viewpoint of Barns Wallis (Sir Michael Redgrave), a man who wants to blow up a dam that’s helping Nazi war production. The first forty minutes of Dam Busters is an example of how not to start a film, no real stakes and exposition galore.

Besides the meandering pacing and the lackluster story structure, the film has its high points, especially after the halfway mark. The film eventually becomes a race against time, where both soldiers and scientists are pushing for the dam to be destroyed. Throwing everything and the kitchen sink to making sure that the dam is destroyed. But why should I care? There is no real personal stakes, nor a real ticking clock. The “race against time” towards the middle of the film is made up by buerocrats and generals trying to see the effectiveness of the bomb. After the bomb seems to be in working order, the movie seems to forget that it has stakes. We, the audience, maybe thrilled by the antics of the scientists and soldiers and eventual bombing run of the dam, but are bored by the motivations of both the soldier characters and of the scientist who seems to only have his career at risk. The film could have had a gripping conclusion but ends on a low point of mourning soldiers we don’t really know and the success of a man we barely relate to. 

The Blu-ray copy of this film is something to marvel at, though. It is easy to see that this film is being presented in high quality. The production problems, such as the atypical boom in-shot around the halfway mark, strings to hold up prop planes, and obvious stock footage, are more visible due to this restoration. 

All in all, these films were both emotionally engaging and made this critic sit at the edge of his seat.

Dunkirk 

Directed by Leslie Norman 
Screenplay By David Divine 
Starring Sir John Mills, Richard Attenborough, and Bernard Lee 
Runtime: 2 hours and 14 minutes 

We go back to another film starring Sir John Mills. This film, telling the stories of the Dunkirk soldiers, goes from the development of the battle to the eventual rescue of the soldiers. The story, told in linear order (sorry, Nolan), has a lot of the conventional aspects of a war-time drama. Where Nolan succeeds in pushing the storytelling envelope with his epic, this film succeeds in making the Dunkirk event a one-on-one experience with the audience. We see the bureaucracy,

the struggle, and eventual decay of the soldiers’ morale, in less than two hours. It’s a film that pushes realism in an era that was known for floppy caricatures of issues faced by veterans. We start with the ignorance of a nation, to the underpinning of both the soldiers and the civilians. 

Richard Attenborough gives a great portrayal of an average man thrown into the chaos. By seeing that he is an average person emasculated by young men going to war, trying step up to the plate against a looming external threat, makes him an interesting character. The simple way that he carries himself in each scene, from a timid civilian, to a hero of the war, shows the level of range Attenborough had during his career. 

A sequence that I found to be phenominal, and something that holds this film to a high esteem in my eyes, would be the scene where Vice Admiral Ramsey is discussing the use of destroyers for the rescue. The jolt from battle, to a phone call over the use of naval ships, shows the stark contrast of the two worlds: that of the soldier and that of the buerocrat. It’s a great scene with great direction towards Ramsey (Nicholas Hannan). But this isn’t a perfect film. It has many, many faults. 

The amount of obvious, film school level mistakes in this film is staggering, to the point of it being an embarrassment to director Leslie Norman. Booms in the frame, obviously painted backgrounds, and childish fight scenes serve as a reason why this film wasn’t regarded as a phenomenal film of its time. Yes, there are scenes of technical excellence, but I do feel like they are bogged down by the major goofs. 

There are some hallmark moments in which I did find myself smiling and engaged with the story. The beach scene especially, in which both soldiers and civilians are praying while hellfire is raining above them, expertly delivers the theme of the movie, and the storytelling that David Divine delivered with Butler and Bradford’s book. 

Do not go into this film intending it to be a thrill ride. Yes, it’s a war movie that shows a good hard look at soldiering, but this is also a slow-burn that puts the heat on personal strife and what it means to be a patriot.