Tag: Peter van Eyck

Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

Exciting and witty war-time spy thriller, an overlooked work from a master director

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Franchot Tone (Corporal John Bramble), Anne Baxter (Mouche), Akim Tamiroff (Farid), Erich von Stroheim (Field Marshall Erwin Rommel), Peter van Eyck (Lieutenant Schwegler), Fortunio Bonanova (General Sebastiano), Miles Mander (Colonel Fitzhume)

It’s 1942 and the war is not going well for the British. The Germans are on the move in Africa under their ace commander Field Marshal Rommel. A tank drifts through the desert, bumping up and down sand dunes. Inside its crew slump, one dangling from his gun turret, another thrown on-and-off the gearsticks with each dune. It’s hauntingly Wilderish – a ghost tank charging through a never-ending desert – that Corporal John Bramble (Franchot Tone) wakes into, escaping across into the bombed-out Empress of Britain hotel run by panicked Farid (Akim Tamiroff), assisted by British-loathing Frenchwoman Mouche (Anne Baxter). Bramble’s hopes that he might lay low for a few days are thrown into danger when the hotel is requisitioned moments after his arrival by the German army with Rommel (Erich von Stroheim) himself setting up command there. Bramble passes himself off as recently deceased club-footed waiter Davos – only to discover Davos was a German spy and Rommel expects him to help delivery on his masterplan to crush the British.

Five Graves to Cairo is a magisterial juggling game of move and counter-move in which everyone holds tightly their own very specific parts of a greater mystery while trying to learn everyone else’s. Wilder does all this with wit and more than a little tension. Can Bramble keep up his pretence about being Davos while hiding his complete ignorance of Rommel’s masterplan? Will Rommel’s constantly alert, note-taking aide Lt Schwegler (Peter van Eyck) rumble him? The whole film is captured in one of its earliest sequences, as Farid carefully shepherds and blocks the view of Schwegler’s inspection of the foyer of his hotel, to prevent him seeing Bramble hiding behind the desk.

The whole film builds from there as Bramble constantly thinks on his feet, crafting obscure but convincing answers as he improvises wildly. All while limping around in a club-foot shoe and providing the sort of night-and-day waiting service the Germans expect. His improvisation is endless, from distracting a blowhard Italian general to steal his gun, to identifying himself quietly to a captured British officer being wined and dined by the smug Rommel by switching a whisky name chain on a bottle with his dog-tag (then smoothly passing off ‘Bramble’ as a rare spirit to the Italian general). His plans switch fast too, from a vague assassination attempt to being instructed by Miles Mander’s Montgomery-ish officer to uncover the Field Marshal’s schemes.

The Field Marshal himself is the epitome of Prussian arrogance. Played with a preening, puffed-up, Teutonic self-importance by an excellent Erich von Stroheim, Rommel never moves without his feathered swagger stick, pompously cavorting around the hotel, prissily demanding the finest sheets and best room. Far from the later ‘Good German’ image of the General, this Rommel is as snobbishly self-satisfied as a Bond villain, overwhelmingly pleased with his elaborate scheme (which he shrewdly set-up years earlier) and teasingly playing twenty questions with his British prisoners to see if they can work-out his intentions, while manipulating the game so his opponents can’t win. He’s an arrogant, hissable villain we are desperate to see taken down a peg or two.

Equally dislikeable is his whipper-smart aide, played with a thin-politeness by Peter van Eyck that hides his comfort with deception. With these villains as the face of the relentless German military machine, Wilder builds real tension around the importance of Bramble foiling Rommel’s scheme – and makes very clear to us that these ruthless sticklers for rules, certain of their own genius and superiority, will definitely not treat this accidental spy kindly if they catch him.

As Bramble, Franchot Tone does a decent job – although his Transatlantic vowels sound particularly odd when the similarly American Anne Baxter immerses herself in a French accent – even if Bramble himself is less interesting than his situation. A more charismatic actor might perhaps have helped lift Five Graves to Cairo to a higher level – after all it shares more than a few stands of DNA with Casablanca but Tone and Baxter aren’t quite Bogie and Bergman. What Tone does do well is morph swiftly from persona-to-persona, switching from heat-stroke confused soldier to would-be-assassin, to fast-thinking spy with a surprisingly natural ease.

He also builds a rapport with Mouche – Edith Head’s costumes for these two, with their contrasting blacks and stripes, quickly visually link them together – who discovers she hates the German more than she resents the British for abandoning her brother at Dunkirk. Baxter is very good as the real emotional heart of this film, a harsh woman hardened by loss, desperate to do what she can to save her POW brother but who finds a new cause to believe in. Baxter carefully lets her character build in statue from obstacle to reluctant aide to true believer, with real naturalness.

Her development reflects a whole film that uses its single claustrophobic location – nearly the whole film takes place over little more than a day or two in the hotel – to excellent effect, with potentially dangerous reveals lurking around every corner. Not least that the real Davos lies buried under rubble in the basement – not quite fully buried, Wilder’s focus early on Bramble’s orthopaedic show hinting at the vital ‘tell’ later on. Everyone – except perhaps the supremely self-satisfied Rommel – suspects there is more going on than they realise, and Wilder expertly ratchets up the tension through Hitchcockian time-bombs and carefully structured dialogue sequences to keep the audience firmly on the edge of their seats.

It’s makes for a fine caper, a careful riff on then current history that suggests Bramble might just have provided the vital clues to prevent the nefarious Rommel from claiming victory at El Alamein. While Five Graves to Cairo has a high entertainment factor, it’s not quite in the first league of war spy stories. But with entertaining performances – Tamiroff’s sweaty, stammering Farid and Fortunio Bonanova’s hyper-Italian Opera-singing general are also treats – and a real wit balanced with a well-developed tension, it’s a strong early film from a director who would go from strength-to-strength.

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965)

Richard Burton lands in Cold War trouble in classic Le Carre adaptation The Spy Why Came In From the Cold

Director: Martin Ritt

Cast: Richard Burton (Alec Leamas), Claire Bloom (Nan Perry), Oskar Werner (Fiedler), Sam Wanamaker (Peters), George Voskovec (East German Defence Attorney), Rupert Davies (George Smiley), Cyril Cusack (Control), Peter van Eyck (Hans-Dieter Mundt), Michael Hordern (Ashe), Robert Hardy (Dick Carlton), Bernard Lee (Patmore)

Spy stories fall into two camps. You get the wham-bam blast of James Bond and then you also get the grimy, isn’t-this-a-damn-dirty-trade stories that John Le Carré helped to turn into a major alternative. The book that really kicked off Le Carré’s career was The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, a slim, brilliantly written story of spies working exclusively in shades of grey. The book was a smash, the film was inevitable, and a damn fine film it turned out to be.

Richard Burton plays Alec Leamas, a former head of Berlin Station for the British Secret Service, who is recruited by the services’ leader Control (Cyril Cusack) as part of an elaborate scheme to discredit the cunning and dangerous head of the Stasi office in Berlin, Hans-Dieter Mundt (Peter van Eyck). Leamas will go through a pretence of disgraced dismissal, alcoholism, jail time and half a dozen other indecencies to attract the attention of the East German defector recruiters in the UK. But will the relationship he develops during his disgrace with librarian and idealistic communist Nan Perry (Claire Bloom) endanger the whole mission?

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is shot in a grimy, gloomy black-and-white which is completely appropriate for the morally questionable escapades its characters get up to. Like Le Carré’s novel, the ends justify any means here, and questions of morality and justice are best benched. Characters who can’t let themselves to forget justice are doomed in this film. Genuine shows of real emotion and feeling are generally signs in this film that a person is doomed.

Martin Ritt’s literate script captures the style and tone of Le Carré extremely well – this is still one of the best, truest and most faithful capturing of Le Carré on the screen – and his direction also has a wonderful mixture of shabby kitchen-sink realism and classic Hollywood film noir class that makes for a brilliantly involving package. The pace of the film holds pretty well, beautifully carrying us through a parade of agents recruiting Leamas for the East Germans (each of which are dismissed with a shocking curtness by the next one along), and the final court room trial of Mundt (with its intricate exploration of the complex plotting of the novel) is extremely involving.

The film also has the benefit of a number of terrific performances, led by Richard Burton in the lead. By this stage of his career, Burton was already felt by many to be lost to serious acting in favour of big budget, Liz Taylor-starring pictures and Hollywood entertainment. But he rouses himself here to give one of his best ever performances. Leamas is a shabby, beaten down, little man (despite being played by Burton!) whose chippiness, dissatisfaction and aggression make him perfect as a possible defector. Ritt’s camera often focuses on Burton’s unflinching stares, his eyes seem to bore into the person he’s talking to, little oceans of anger and resentment.

Burton’s Leamas is deep down sick and tired of the world of spying, its betrayals and lies, and sickened with self-disgust at his own involvement in it. Burton skilfully underplays the role throughout, largely ignoring any temptation for grandstanding or big acting moments – instead he is as compromised, grey and lost as the rest of the film, in a superb performance of cynical disaffection. Bunched up, his grand voice dialled down, his eyes flickering with resentment – a great performance.

Claire Bloom is rather affecting as Nan (hilariously, her name was changed from Liz in the book as the producers feared she would be confused with the rather more famous Liz in Burton’s life) and Oskar Werner gives the film a major burst of energy just as it is flagging from one interrogation of Leamas too many, as a chippy, eager, sharp Stasi officer, who is determined to see justice done. The rest of the cast are filled out with some classy Brit character actors, who excel from suave (Robert Hardy) to seedy (Michael Hordern), while Cyril Cusack brings “Control” to cynical life and Rupert Davies gets to the be the first actor to play George Smiley on screen (even if he is only really an extra here).

Spy is a film of atmosphere. Frequently it trusts the viewer to catch up the plot as they go. Leamas actions are not always explained until late on – and we are constantly suspecting that we are only seeing half the story. Its a film that plays its cards close to the chest. This might alienate some, but it’s a true representation of Le Carre – and fits perfectly with the weary sense Leamas has of not being in control of his own life.

But what Ritt does so well is keeping that tonal sense of there always being another shady, compromising twist around the corner. All is never what it seems, and the film ends with an especially bleak series of footnotes as we find out just how ruthless both sides are prepared to be in this soulless chess game of Cold War politics. It’s the moments like this that Spy Who Came in From the Cold really nails. For Le Carré fans the film is a must: for those less interested in the world of espionage, they may find it takes a little too much time.

The Wages of Fear (1953)

Yves Montard and Charles Vanel struggle to collect The Wages of Fear

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Cast: Yves Montard (Mario), Charles Vanel (Jo), Folco Lulli (Luigi), Peter van Eyck (Bimba), Véra Clouzot (Linda), William Tubbs (Bill O’Brien), Darío Moreno (Hernandez), Jo Dest (Smerloff)

You’re stuck in a dead-end town without the money to get out. There’s been an accident at the local mining company that runs the town. They need to get super-duper, explosive material up there to blast the mine and prevent a fire spinning out of control. The only way to do it is in a truck up a bumpy hill road in the blazing sunshine. The company will pay a small fortune to anyone desperate or stupid enough to do it. Would you collect these Wages of Fear?

That’s the conceit in Clouzot’s slow-burn, tension-packed masterpiece. Mario (Yves Montard), along with several others, is stuck in a dead-end desert town in South America unable to afford the air fare to escape. Mario befriends an ageing gangster Jo (Charles Vanel), now also stuck in the town, and the two of them are tempted to drive trucks full of nitroglycerine (which can explode when hot or under the slightest jolt or pressure) to help put out a massive fire at the local American-owned oilfield. Along with Bimba (Peter van Eyck), a German, and Luigi (Folco Lulli), an Italian, they drive trucks up there – but the pressure affects the men in different ways and the dangers of the drive make it highly unlikely that they will all make it.

The Wages of Fear is the classic slow-burn leading to (literally) explosive tension. It’s almost a full hour into the film before the nitroglycerine makes an appearance, but after that the film lays a constant series of dilemmas in the way of our heroes as they try to make their way 300 miles to the oilfield. Never before has the slightest jolt of a car, or the smallest pot hole, been more wracked with danger. Is it any wonder each of the men go a little insane: who could do this and not be a little cracked in the head?

Clouzot directs this with a sublime brilliance. The film is a masterclass in subtle build-up. The opening act of the film establishes the characters of Mario and Jo (and to a lesser extent Bimba and Luigi). We see them in their natural habitat, and learn to understand their characters so thoroughly, that we are genuinely surprised and a little unnerved about how much they change over that long and dangerous 300 miles. Yves Montard’s Mario is a quintessential cool customer – hanging at bars, treating his girlfriend Linda (Vera Clouzot, the director’s wife) with a distant disdain – but he’s also a man easily influenced, prone to hero worship not least to new-guy-in-town Jo, on whom he has a massive man-crush.

Jo, played with a sustained brilliance by Charles Vanel, is the big fish in the small pond, a small-time gangster lording it over his fellow town-dwellers with an unruffled arrogance. Jo has no interest in anyone else and claims Mario’s allegiance as his right – in fact he takes delight in provoking Luigi, Mario’s previous best friend (crush?). He watches with amused detachment when Mario drops Linda to spend time with him. He openly provokes a fight in a bar with Luigi (Clouzot’s first sequence of bubbling tension, brilliantly shot with an unease and unpredictability that could see almost anything happen once a gun emerges) and makes a big show of his past relationship with O’Brien the oil company representative.

The stage is set for us to see Mario as too laid-back, distracted and indolent to succeed and Jo as a collected, calm and controlling presence made for drama. So it works even better to see these two men change position as the journey continues and fear grabs Jo in a way that seems to surprise even him. Mario, meanwhile, becomes almost ruthlessly focused in his determination to see the mission through to its completion, and increasingly distant from those around him. Because in these life and death situations, there is no time for fear or to mollycoddle the concerned. When a single mistake could kill you all, you can’t afford to waste time on someone too scared to carry on.

Mind you, the opening section of the film brilliantly establishes the desperation these people feel to escape from this dead-end town. A young man, not selected for the driving operation, hangs himself in despair. Bimba states that the slightest horseplay or distraction on his trial run with the truck during the selection process will lead to deadly consequences for the joker – and he’s not fooling around. O’Brien of the oil company makes it clear that the mission is almost certainly suicide – and that the company basically doesn’t care at all about the fates of those selected to go on it: they are completely disposable.

Those selected are both lucky and unlucky – and Clouzot uses a brilliant early sequence to establish the danger of the nitro. O’Brien calmly takes a small sample of it in a shot glass and spills it to destructive effect. As one reviewer said, “you sit waiting for the theatre to explode”. Part of this is the way Clouzot uses the men in the film: they are very much rats on a running track, trapped in a route full of danger, with no release or relaxation from the deadly load they carry. Extraordinary sequences abound in the film’s second half, like a whistle-stop our of tension set-pieces from films.

The dangers of everything are doubled because the characters are driving a portable bomb. Moving over a bumpy road – terrifying. Driving round a tight corner on a rickety wooden platform over a cliff – tense enough normally, even more so now. Encountering a road block with a giant stone – guess we need to use some of this incredibly reactive stuff (a brilliant scene as Bimba tenderly pours a small amount of nitro into a drilled hole and rigs up a fuse). Crawling the truck through an oil slick – sublime. And it works so well because the film makes clear that our heroes have no choice at all, they simply must get the money that will come from finishing the mission.

Clouzot totally understands the personal dynamics that underpin these crisis situations. Bimba and Luigi slowly overcome distance to find a real bond between them. Meanwhile Mario and Jo’s relationship disintegrates, as Jo’s cowardice leads to Mario treating him with increasing disdain, contempt and finally disgust. Mario himself becomes increasingly adamantine, fixed on the mission’s success at the exclusion of all other concerns.

Clouzot ends events with a supremely ironical touch, almost darkly comic – but then somehow not a surprise in this film where life is cheap and can literally blow up in your face at any moment. Sublimely directed, and a masterclass in tension and subtle character development, it features a brilliant performance from Charles Vanel and constantly rewards viewing. The Wages of Fear are high – but their price can be even higher.