Editing Ice Cold in Alex (section)

==Production==
The film was based on the 1957 novel ''Ice Cold in Alex'' and its serialisation (as ''Escape in the Desert'') in the magazine ''Saturday Evening Post''.<ref name=Landon /> ''The New York Times'' described the book as "an excellent escape story played out in the best Hitchcock manner."<ref>Three Men And a Girl: Three Men And a Girl
By HERBERT MITGANG. ''The New York Times'', 17 February 1957: BR4.</ref>

The screenplay contains multiple key changes from the novel, including making Anson rather than Pugh the protagonist. ABPC bought the rights and assigned T. J. Morison to collaborate on a treatment with Landon under the supervision of Walter Mycroft.<ref>{{cite book |title=British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference |first1=Sue |last1=Harper |first2=Vincent |last2=Porter |page=88 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2007 |isbn=9780198159353 |oclc=144596062}} Originally published in 2003.</ref>

Richard Todd says he turned down a lead role because he felt the story was far fetched and he was getting tired of military roles.<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Todd|title=In camera : an autobiography continued|year=1989|publisher=Hutchinson|url=https://archive.org/details/incameraautobiog0000rich/page/188/mode/1up?|page=188}}</ref>

The producers had intended to shoot the location work for ''Ice Cold in Alex'' in Egypt, but they had to switch to Libya because of the [[Suez conflict]].{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

Filming began 10 September 1957.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|url=https://archive.org/details/variety208-1957-11/page/n13/mode/1up?q=%22ice+cold+in+alex%22|date=November 1957|page=14|title=Hollywood Production Pulse}}</ref>

Sylvia Syms (Sister Murdoch) said in a 2011 interview about the film that conditions during the desert shoot were so difficult it felt like they were actually in the situation the film portrays. She said: "You may find this hard to believe, but there was very little acting. It was horrible. We ''became'' those people ... we ''were'' those people". She said that today people would probably call it [[method acting]], but added: 'We didn't know what Method Acting was, we just called it 'getting on with it'." Syms said that during the scene where the ambulance rolls backwards down the hill narrowly avoiding her, the actors assumed there would be a hawser to stop the vehicle if anything went wrong, but there was not. The actress said she was "pretty sure" Mills, Quayle and Andrews angrily upbraided director J. Lee Thompson for this risky approach. She added: "He liked to push actors a bit". The quicksand sequence was filmed in an ice cold artificial bog in an English studio (some scenes were shot at [[Elstree Studios (Shenley Road)|Elstree]])<ref>{{cite book|last=Warren|first=Patricia|title=British Film Studios: An Illustrated History|location=London|publisher=B. T. Batsford|year=2001|page=73}}</ref> and was "very tough" on Quayle and Mills. Syms said the producers got a good deal out of her for "£30 a week", adding: "But I made a lot more when they turned it into an advert for Carlsberg". She said there are "no false heroics in it" and that she had been told by desert war veterans it is a good picture of soldiers in that theatre of war, adding: "I am proud of it".<ref name=Syms>A 22-minute interview with Sylvia Syms was first published in the 2015 DVD release. See {{cite AV media |title=Ice Cold in Alex |location=United Kingdom |publisher=Studio Canal |date=2015 |medium=Blu-Ray DVD (region B/2) |oclc=988601487}} .<!--original bare URL citation: http://www.studiocanal.co.uk/Film/Details/dff85f52-83f0-4618-9021-9e85016ae885--></ref>

There were a number of British films being shot in Africa around this time, including ''[[No Time to Die (1958 film)|No Time to Die]]'', ''[[Nor the Moon by Night]]'' and ''[[The Black Tent]]''.<ref>BRITAIN'S MOVIE SCENE: J. Arthur Rank Approves Common Market-
By STEPHEN WATTS. ''The New York Times'', 27 October 1957: X7.</ref>