Ice Cold In Alex
Artist: Other
Format: UK Quad (30"x 40")
Condition: Excellent
Year: 1958
DescriptionA group of soldiers and nurses must travail the North African desert to reach safety in J. Lee Thompson’s stirring WWII drama “Ice Cold in Alex”. Released in 1958 in the UK, US audiences had to wait until 1961 to see a cut-down version of the film titled “Desert Attack”. The film is noted for its character driven focus without conveying too much violence as well as for the now famous ‘worth waiting for’ beer drinking final scenes. Providing meaty roles for its cast, there are fantastic performances from John Mills, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews and though seeming a tad too-stagey by modern standards, there is no denying the film’s rousing and moving capabilities.
The ‘A’ style Quad here certainly proves that less can certainly equal more. The painted artwork works wonderfully in evoking the sparse and unforgiving landscape that must be conquered by the characters whilst also accentuating the enormity of their task. The poster is ultimately quite poignant with the grave imagery on the left adding a touch of sadness to the already impressive poster.
The simplicity of the design is interesting and with the lack of cast and crew credits, the poster resembles more of an Advance Quad than a General Release poster. What is also interesting is the range of UK posters released for the film. The ‘B’ and ‘C’ style Quad variants (‘B’ is also featured on this site and ‘C’ is shown below courtesy of googleimages.com) again feature simple designs though in photographic form. In the ultra-rare UK 1-Sheet below, the artwork of the ‘A’ Style Quad is featured alongside artwork of the ‘C’ style Quad. The Sylvia Syms cleavage (which is never revealed in the film!) would most likely have proved too much for UK censors in 1958 & it is likely that the 1-Sheet was produced for use in (more liberal) overseas markets.
The poster here has been linen-backed.