Rent North West Frontier (1959)

Good Old Fashioned British Film - North West Frontier review by RP

Kenneth More was the epitome of the English film star. This sort of film is politically incorrect and as anti-woke as you like,. Great film! They do not make them like that any more!!!!!

Ripping Yarn. - North West Frontier review by Steve

Like J.Lee Thompson's Ice Cold in Alex a year earlier, this brings together a loose alliance of uprooted mavericks who travel in ramshackle transport across a war ravaged country with a traitor on board. This time it's British India in 1905, and an army officer (Kenneth More) must get an infant Hindu prince to a safety by train, as north-west India spills into civil war.

And he's accompanied by a party of diverse civilians, with Lauren Bacall as a proto-feminist in her best post-Bogart role. Herbert Lom is typecast as the saturnine villain. IS Johar plays the obsequious Indian train driver as a dated stereotype, but he is charismatic, self deprecating, and ultimately a hero. And then there's a huge cast of extras.

This is an epic adventure which fills the magnificent CinemaScope with spectacular action. There is some thematic talk of colonialism and religious conflict which strays into clumsy editorialising. But this is broken up by incredibly suspenseful cliff hangers, particularly the nerve shredding crossing of a blown up railway bridge...

Spain effectively stands in for occupied India. While some of the attitudes are of their time, there is quite a critical attitude to the British Empire, compared with the Hollywood Raj films of the thirties. Kenneth More makes a dashing Ripping Yarns style hero. While maybe too verbose for some, it's a thrilling and good looking British blockbuster.

Utterly Brilliant in Every Way, a Classic British Film with a Great Cast/Script/Director. 100% Class - North West Frontier review by PV

The concept of this film may sound unexciting - a train travels across British India rescuing a royal boy. How can that be exciting, you may think? Well, watch this and film out.

It is almost a big British Western, actually, and the British director J. Lee Thompson (a wrongly forgotten director) whose film before this was the classic ICE COLD IN ALEX went to Hollywood after NORTH-WEST FRONTIER to direct so many classic movies. Before he went he directed TIGER BAY. I Hollywood he directed GUNS OF NAVARONE, CAPE FEAR, TARAS BULBA, MACKENNA'S GOLD before, perhaps, declining in 1970s and 80s to direct PLANET OF THE APES/DEATHWISH sequels. Probably the best British action director though.

Filmed in Granada (southern Spain) but looks like the north-west frontier and India to me (more perhaps than Snowdonia in Wales used in CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER) and some beautiful shots. Wonderful acting from a superb cast, all the actors British/American and Indian, and perfect pitch, structure, narrative progression, dramatic tension. In a word: PERFECTION.

I get tired of people giving trigger warnings to such films, as they 'reflect the attitudes of their time' - just because it's set in the British Raj and there is a (rather great and well played) Indian traindriver character (the pofaced woke seem to think anyone of colour playing a comic character which may have some caricature is racist. I S JOHAR was a great Indian actor appearing in so many Hindi films and starred in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA too. He was from what is now Pakistan and witnessed and entire Hindu settlement burnt down by a mob of Muslims in his youth, SO 100% Total authentic casting with bells on then!!!

Odd really, as they never complain at all the massive stereotypes and caricatures of white British people, as here in part, with the pompous British officer at the base). AND this film and MANY more are critical of the empire - Brits are always very self-critical and, as it says here, support the underdog (can you IMAGINE China of now ever even criticising their new unofficial empire on anything - ever?) Anyway, I ignore the ignorance of the perpetually offended.

This is set in the north-west frontier, and features Muslims trying to overthrow a Hindu Maharajarh. Set in 1905. Well this location is now Pakistan and a million died in ethno-faith violence from the same root. So that went well. The British did not do that... One of the first lines in the film is indeed 'ALLAH UH AKBAR' as the Islamist hordes attack the palace and chase the Brits who are helping the royal Hindu prince to flee.

In fact, the British empire was more than anything else an IDEA, and it was and remains the most benevolent empire in history (compare to Arab empires, Asian ones, barbaric Benin empire, Nazis, USSR et al).

Anyway, the cast is sublime with the brilliant Herbert Lom The Ladykillers, - born in Prague who came to escape the Nazis (oh that awful British empire eh?). GREAT actor - I can watch him in anything. He died in 2012 age 95 in London but 10 years earlier gave his final performance in Midsomer Murders! His career had started in 1930s in Czechoslovakia. He often played foreign roles, including being the first actor to play the King of Siam on stage - Yul Brynner took over from him to make the role in The King and I his own.

I sort of expected this to be from a class Victorian/Edwardian novel, esp as it is set in 1905. But no, original screenplay. SO well-written, great lines, tension itching with the heat throughout. I last watched this film on TV many years ago. I am SO glad I watched it again. Shows how awful so many modern movies are, to be honest.

One of the best films ever made. 5 stars with steam train whistles too!