The Lost Patrol

The Lost Patrol (1934)

A John Ford war movie five years before his breakthrough movie, "Stagecoach," is interesting at least in relation to his career. So I watched this (on Warner Archive Instant).

And his lifelong themes are here—men in the wilds facing their weaknesses. His war films and westerns all have qualities of machismo, for sure, but they aren't just masculine adventure flicks. That's what makes even something like this minor effort stand up over time. When two of these men, after seeing their fellow soldiers die one by one, sit and smoke a pair of cigarettes and talk about themselves and their lives and their halted dreams, you have the depths of the movie. And of John Ford.

The plot is a contrivance—a British WWI patrol gets lost in an Arabian desert with hostile fire around them. As each of the dozen or so men dies, either from standing up at the wrong time, making a run for it, or just losing their mind in the heat, you zero in on the few that remain. And on the idea of survival. But none of this is particularly realistic. In fact, most of the film is supposed to be a night and it's bright as noon.

But Ford must have known it was a fable he was laying out, and he knew as well the realism he needed in the interactions between the men, all ordinary fellows. Except for one religious nut played with believable excess by Boris Karloff, and he also is a symbol of what their options are.

And so it steadily dwindles on, the men and the film, honing down to the final moments of desperation. And then a big sudden end which feels about right. That's what is odd, somehow—the actions of the main characters become more and more realistic as they get more extreme.

For those interested in Ford's famous blocking out of how his movies are shot, this is a decent example. Because most of it was shot on this oasis set, he could control within these confines the angles and the use of space of confinement well. Which is partly what the movie is about, too, thinking about either escape or entrapment and death. Not a great movie, but with an aura of greatness here and there and in the overview.