Five Graves to Cairo

A British soldier survives a desert tank battle and takes on the identity of a dead hotel waiter believed to be a Nazi spy, allowing him to infiltrate Field Marshal Rommel's headquarters. He uncovers a secret cache of supplies hidden along the coast crucial to the German advance. The film combines espionage thriller elements with wartime desert intrigue.

The film is set against the backdrop of the North African Campaign of 1942, when Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps pushed British forces back toward Egypt before the tide turned at El Alamein; the specific spy plot is fictional.

A wartime propaganda thriller with fictional espionage plot layered atop the real North African campaign setting.

Montgomery's Eighth Army broke the Axis line west of Alexandria and began the pursuit that ended in Tunisia.

A massive artillery barrage opened Operation Lightfoot, followed by a grinding infantry and armoured battle through minefields. Operation Supercharge broke through in early November and Rommel withdrew.

Directed by Billy Wilder

Cast: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Erich von Stroheim, Akim Tamiroff

Positioned at Summer 1942 within the World War II phase of the war, as part of the North African Campaign. This is entry 69 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• North Africa campaign
• Rommel
• espionage
• Billy Wilder
• desert war

• 

  The Battle of El Alamein

  October 23 – November 11, 1942

• 

  El Alamein: The Line of Fire

  October 23 – November 4, 1942

• 

  The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

  1942–October 1944

• 

  The Desert Rats

  April–December 1941

• 

  Sahara

  June 1942

• 

  Tobruk

  September 1942