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.

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.

This is an extremely curious film from Hammer.They did look to diversify from their Hammer horrors and this is one of the results.The plot seems quite strange and very muddled.What is more it is difficult to take seriously.Normally in an adventure film you know which side to support.However in this film it is difficult to know who is worse.The Army comes out of it just as badly as the warring tribes.Also here we have a film as late as 1967 where it was thought not to be a problem having a white European actor putting on make up to play an Asian character.The plot revolves around the fact that Lewis is discharged from the army and imprisoned on very circumstantial evidence and racial prejudice.I have to say that "Carry On Up The Khyber" is a far better film and a lot more fun too.

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!