The Brigand of Kandahar

With the seven Hammer Films featuring then-rising young star Oliver Reed, sometimes there's a feeling they didn't quite know how great a thing they had... even in his very own titular horror, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, he doesn't appear until around forty-five-minutes (although the previous sequences are intensely entertaining)... and in THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER, he dies way too soon...

Same thing happens here, since, as the leader of a band of holed-up Indian (from India) rebels who kidnap Ronald Lewis... playing a half-Caucasian/Indian treated unfairly by fellow British soldiers led by Duncan Lamont... Reed's not supposed to be the main star, billed second to Hammer's square-jawed SCREAM OF FEAR and STOP ME BEFORE I KILL Lewis...

But Oliver simply doesn't have enough zesty screen-time overall, intensely channeling Anthony Quinn's zesty Arab rogue in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and again cast with his WEREWOLF co-star Yvonne Romain, looking voluptuous and alluring as usual while, as Reed's jealous sister, she doesn't have much to do but stand around and brood, without even really trying to seduce the handsome half-caste leading man...

Leaving most of the romantic ingenue role to equally gorgeous Katherine Woodville (who had also co-starred with Reed, in THE PARTY'S OVER) since her affair with hero Lewis... who supposedly deliberately abandoned her doomed husband... provides equal worth with the most conveniently dull character in Glyn Houston's wartime journalist (himself channeling Arthur Kennedy from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA), acting so breezy and bland that he never seems in very much danger: a microcosm of how this entire 1850's-era war-adventure lacks tension (and purpose) throughout.

Had too stop watching this movie as it's set in India, but contains no Indian actors or actresses. What a disgrace!

While Hammer Studios produced some fairly able historical adventures in the early 1960s - titles such as the serviceable FURY AT SMUGGLER'S BAY and THE DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES - they also made their fair share of stinkers, of which THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR is probably the worst. This is an entirely stodgy costume adventure, made on a low budget and with a script which feels like it was rushed out in a hurry.

The story is cheap and carries some distinctly colonial racial overtones, not least in the presence of anti-hero Ronald Lewis, blacked-up as a half-caste for his role. Lewis must be the singular most obnoxious heroic character in a Hammer film, a guy who I actually despised throughout much of the running time; were we really supposed to feel sorry for him after he swapped allegiances like that?

Elsewhere, it's sub-ZULU antics throughout, enlivened by a handful of larger-scale battle sequences which employ some dodgy back projection which saps them of realism. Once again Hammer has an eye for a distinguished supporting cast, but most of them are wasted here; the only ones who come out of it well are Duncan Lamont and Katherine Woodville. Oliver Reed is cast as the bad guy but I feel he would have made a much more compelling protagonist. In any case, this is as dull as dishwater and one of Hammer's weakest efforts.

After watching TBoK for some thirty minutes, this started to remind me of a Hammer film, my having missed the reference to Hammer in the opening credits.

Other reviewers have noted its shortcomings, such as uniforms that would not have kept their brightness for very long, artificial-looking studio sets and Ronald Lewis's unremarkable performance - certainly he's no Tyrone Power, who played a similar role - of a mixed-race officer - in "King of the Khyber Rifles".

To which might be added: easily-reloadable rifles used by both sides that were not produced in 1850 and the risible scenes of key characters bouncing along, ostensibly on horses, against back projection as they led their men into battle.

The English countryside served well enough for India for most, if not all, of the film, and, dare I say it in 2022, so did the blacked-up "Indians".

At least the ending was a bit of a surprise, not least because of the hundreds of men that suddenly appeared in a film that up to then had only featured a score or so at any one time. Now I know that scenes were lifted from "Zarak", I plan to watch that film to see how many.

Worth a little more than the 5.4 average rating. I thought.

Straight out of Rudyard Kipling's standard book of Raj adventures, this sees the disgraced "Lt. Case" (Ronald Lewis) dragooned from his regiment only to take up with their mountain-dwelling nemesis "Eli Khan" (Oliver Reed) swearing vengeance on the colonel (Duncan Lamont) who was responsible for his harsh treatment. The arrival of journalist "Marriot" (Glen Houston) upsets not just the army's applecart a little, but also sends a man high up into the mountains in whom the former soldier can confide. It's also becoming quite clear that though there's a degree of working trust between the khan and the deserter, it's highly likely that "Case" hasn't completely abandoned his loyalties to Queen and Country - and his boss suspects as much, too. Reed isn't really a natural here bedecked in his flowing garb, but there are still quite an entertaining series of flag-waving escapades with plenty of gunfire and menace amidst the polystyrene rocks and industrial scale cheese plants. Yvonne Romain pops up now and again as the selfish "Ratina" and does her best Caroline Munro impersonation, but luckily that element doesn't clog up the boy's own elements of derring-do with sharp knives. Nope, you will never remember it, but I like the genre and this is perfectly watchable.