MovieChat Forums > Five Graves to Cairo (1943) Discussion > Excellent film, but one small quibble...

Excellent film, but one small quibble...


A pleasant surprise to find it on (UK) BBC2 as I type this, as its years since I've seen it.

As a Brit however, I take some small offence at one thing in the film. Anne Baxters character, Mouche, seemingly hates the British because her 2 brothers were left on the beach at Dunkirk, along with the other French, when the British evacuated....she makes quite a big deal of it. Baxter/Franchot Tone asks where she heard that, implying it was simply Vichy propaganda, but makes no effort to tell her that fully ONE THIRD of those evacuated from Dunkirk were French/Belgian....then the same argument comes up again towards the end, again uncountered.

Its a small thing really, but in a wartime film, made for propaganda purposes, why was such a seemingly anti-British UNTRUTH left uncontested?

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Granted, she does come around in the end, & that was a clever little scene which I'd forgotten about, where she helps him escape by her behaviour in front of the Germans.

I think I was 'surprised' by him not explaining the situation of Dunkirk, rather than 'offended'.

As to people not knowing the true situation at Dunkirk, I would suspect more were aware of it THEN than seem to be now.

Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed watching it again....its a film that most certainly comes across as an entertaining yarn & a clever 'adventure thriller' than as a piece of propaganda.

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Just watched it today as well.

The politics discussed are quite robust considering it was made at the height of the war without victory being assured. I guess even then the grievances about Dunkirk were still causing a twinge of conscience in the allies, although this was an Ameriacan film (did they film it in Arizona?).

I liked the way they handled the Italian general, ridiculing him, but in quite an affectionate way, as if they knew the Italian people were being led by a posturing buffoon.

SPOILER

Just one thing though, the idea of the graves being sited at the letters of the name of the country was great, but why didnt Bramble just tell British command to dig out the news archives the reports of where the "Professor" was doing his digs?
He just seemed content to look at his picture on the new sheet in the cutlery draw without going on to actually read where he was digging!

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***SPOILERS***






brownblur
the same argument comes up again towards the end, again uncountered.


I was worried at the beginning they'd just leave her opinion unchallenged, but he does counter it generally with his little monologue at the end. Didn't get into Dunkirk stats, but he said stuff like "a million brothers is worth more than just one brother", patriotic background music was playing, etc. Plus, after he found out she was killed, Bramble was told by Farid that she said the Brits were ultimately going to crush the Nazis. So even though the movie didn't get into Dunkirk specifically, even she herself changed her overall outlook on the war, at the same time knowing that her change resulted in her death - and that's more powerful than having Bramble say something like, "Oh, yeah? Dunkirk saved the allies from getting slaughtered, beeeyatch."

Would have been a real eye-opener if he'd said beeeyatch, wouldn't it?


UmbertoJones
He just seemed content to look at his picture on the new sheet in the cutlery draw without going on to actually read where he was digging!


Didn't have time to read it because the Nazi dude approached the room soon after he saw the photo of Rommel the paper.

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AMEN!

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Only anti-Britishness was the main characters anti-British accent. :)

Rommels portrait was of course quite fictional but they didnt know about him at that time like someone stated in the imdb commentary.

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