The Brigand of Kandahar

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.

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.

Now, in 2024, we often forget that the UK film industry gave us many adventure movies in the fifties and sixties, at the scale of many Hollywood films, with as much budget, actors, directing skills. It was during an era when UK still had many colonies around the world; it was the opposite to the social tendancies that this movie industry will show us during the same period. And which begun in the forties, just after WW2 and for instance London after the Blitz,, among ruins. The roots of the kitchen sink tradition of the British cinema. Now,, concerning this John Gilling's film, I was so amazed by the quality. I often counfound this film with BANDIT OF ZHOBE, same director, also an adventure film, but with Victor Mature instead of Ron Lewis. We have here the proof that director John Gilling was not only an excellent thriller and crime director and also a terrific horrorr provider - SHADOW OF THE CAT, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES - but also a little genius in terms of adventure flicks: FURY AT SMUGGLER'S BAY, PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER...Do not miss them because they are "just" British.

An interesting little Hammer offering story wise. You'd think the red coats of the British Army would be the heroes of this Raj story set in 1850. But as it turns out in a welcome twist, they're more the villains, doing the colonial nasty on the local tribespeople, made up generally of black-faced English actors.

Had to laugh at the indignant shock of a couple of reviewers here expressing amazement that more Indians didn't feature in the cast. This is a Hammer production made in around 1964/65 and as such was made on the smell of an oily rag in England. For goodness sake, check out those vintage painted back drops of the castle in the mountains. There is absolutely no Indian location footage and in fact, footage was "borrowed" from a couple of other films to round out the battle scenes. Before we get all lathered up about the casting in a 55 year old "B" grade supporting feature, let's also remember that a bare 3 years before, it was perfectly acceptable for Alec Guinness to play an Arab in Lawrence of Arabia. In fact a couple of years after this, Lawrence Olivier played the Mahdi in Khartoum with little criticism.

As mentioned the only really stand-out feature of this film was the anti-colonial perspective of the British Raj. The villains of the piece were the senior British Officers who fitted up a fellow officer Case for a court-martial, because besides supposedly having "a touch of the tar brush", he had also had an affair with another officer's wife. He ends up running with the local rebel alliance, though their leader, Eli Khan (an hilariously black-faced Oliver Reed), is also depicted as being somewhat cruel and untrustworthy.

It all ends up in a gloriously romantic tragedy of near -Shakespearean proportions, as bodies litter a paper-mache cave hideout and accusing fingers are afterwards pointing in the British establishment direction. Cue the casting credits for this little oddity. I'm sure the production only ever had pretensions to being a support feature, but I give it a 5 for trying something a little different with the story line.

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