Five Graves to Cairo

The tank seen at the start of the picture was an actual American army tank but not authentically a British one. It was loaned to the production by a neighboring American army base. The production had attempted to get a real British tank but had had their request knocked back.

For the first shot of Erich von Stroheim as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in this film, director Billy Wilder shot him in a close-up from the back of his neck as an establishing shot. Wilder said, "Standing with his stiff fat neck in the foreground he could express more than almost any actor with his face."

On the first day director Billy Wilder's hero Erich von Stroheim, arrived on set, Wilder ran to the wardrobe department to welcome him. He said, "This is a very big moment in my life . . . that I should now be directing the great Stroheim. Your problem, I guess, was that you were ten years ahead of your time." Von Stroheim replied, "Twenty."

In this film, when Rommel (Erich von Stroheim) says to Mouche (Anne Baxter) that her trial will not be conducted under German law in order "to show you we are not the barbarians you think--according to your own law, the Code Napoleon", this is, according to Leonard Rubinstein in his book "The Great Spy Films", a reference to von Stroheim's character Rauufenstein in Jean Renoir's The Grand Illusion (1937). Moreover, Otto Preminger's POW Camp Commandant character Col. von Scherbach in Stalag 17 (1953) (Billy Wilder's other WW II movie) is also a play on von Stroheim's similar character Capt. von Rauffenstein in "La grande illusion".

Erich von Stroheim (Field Marshal Erwin Rommel) dictatorially insisted on improving his own military uniform and got permission from Paramount to design this costume as well as his hair and makeup. He studied photographs of Rommel and made requests for specific equipment, clothing and props. These included authentic German field glasses, a whisk and a 35mm Leica camera with actual film. These items were all fully functional and of the correct provenance. Von Stroheim maintained that his performance could be affected by incorrect accouterments, as an actor would know if the items he was wearing or using were not authentic. Director Billy Wilder queried him about the real film in the camera, which wouldn't be seen by viewers; von Stroheim replied, "An audience always senses whether a prop is genuine or false." In real life Rommel dressed casually and wore loose-fitting uniforms, yet von Stroheim demanded that he wear "a uniform as it is supposed to be worn." Von Stroheim believed that Rommel never took off his cap in the desert sun and so did not have sunburn face make-up above his eyes.