Fusileros de la India

First off, actually filming in the Khyber Pass was really interesting especially considering the history and the current events. The acting was all right and nothing special. However, like a John Ford movie, the scenery and location are the real actors. To film where the actual events took place was a real thrill. The whole British military experience was also a thrill. Even though a reviewer mentioned the uniforms were not accurate for the period, I thought they were great. To see the training and what they went through was also a thrill. Although, some scenes shown, the men were using a Mauser bolt action type of rifle I do not think was accurate. I thought they used Martini Henry rifles but I could be wrong. I did see some bolt action Enfield rifles too. The battle scene was the most exciting. It showed a camel being used to take a wounded officer back (you will see what I mean). Then to see the soldiers using camels and mules to transport cannons and other weapons that were taken apart and transported on mule back. They showed cannons in pieces on the backs of the animals and then the men, who were military trained, take the cannons, assemble them, load, and actually shoot them. Some scenes the cannons fired and no recoil but some were loaded, fired, and then the cannons recoiled and almost flip over. This was the real thing. When I say assemble, I mean, the cannon barrels were in two pieces, then screwed together and a band in the middle tightened down with a big screw. The wheels put on, the men readied it to fire and then fired. To me, skip the first half and just watch the battle scene and you will be amazed.

This has shades of the "Four Feathers' story to it as "Lenbridge" (Peter Lawford) is drummed out of his regiment after being accused of stealing top secret documents. It's made all the worse by the fact that it's his colonel father (Leo G. Carroll) who has to oversee this disgrace. He is also to face charges of high treason, but absconds and sets off for India where he hopes to clear his name and restore the family honour. The story itself is quite a solid British Raj adventure, but director Allan Davis really does turn it into a bit of a drudge. There's a bit of action towards the conclusion but otherwise it treads the line between adventure film and romance just a little to clumsily - and slowly - for my liking. Regarding that latter part of the plot, we must rely on the underwhelming Janice Rule ("Jane") who really rather simpers her way through the scenes as the story begins to falter. I like this kind of boy's own style of story - so probably give it a little more credit than it deserves, but neither Richard Greene nor the wonderfully expressive Skelton Knaggs can make this sow's ear into a silk purse. It's a perfectly watchable tale of espionage and subterfuge, but equally forgettable too.

---SPOILER---

In this period picture set in the Indian "raj" in the mid-1800s, Peter Lawford is a British army officer framed for espionage by Russian spies and drummed out of the army. He escapes from the police on his way to prison and makes his way to India to gather evidence to clear himself, a task he figures to accomplish by enlisting in the army under a different name. A variation on the old "Four Feathers" story, this low-budgeter from MGM can't make up its mind whether it's a thriller (Lawford trying to clear his name and find the real spies) or an action picture (the British fighting rebellious Afghan tribesmen in the Khyber Pass) and doesn't really succeed at either--you know that Lawford's going to clear himself (he does) and that the British army will win the day (they do). There's some odd casting (Janice Rule is Lawford's British sweetheart but doesn't even try to hide her American accent, Australian actor Michael Pate plays a Cockney soldier with a laughably exaggerated Cockney accent, American actor Richard Hale--who often played Indian chiefs in westerns--plays a Russian spymaster in the same kind of chopped, singsong manner in which he played Indians), and the picture overall is stiff and mechanical; a burst of action at the end isn't particularly well done (although it was filmed on location at the Khyber Pass and uses hundreds of extras), and even Lawford's charm, good looks and way with a line can't really save it.

It's a bit better than most of the innumerable period "action" clunkers Sam Katzman was churning out at Columbia--several of them with the same setting as this picture--at around the same time, but that's about all that can be said for it.

Sure, it's a little dated... it's already a period piece. Peter Lawford is "Captain Lenbridge", framed by a spy. He had just proposed to his girl, but all that is put on hold, and off to jail he goes. He re-enlists under a different name, and tries to make good. Lots of military action, planning and plotting. This one is very okay. Nothing too special. According to the card at the very end, this actually was filmed at the Khyber Pass, although it seems like going to an awful lot of trouble for a pretty ordinary scene. This one was made about halfway through Lawford's career. Directed by british Allan Davis. Looks like this was the first film he had directed. It's good, but not great. Shown now and then on Turner Classic.

After an officer is drummed out of one of the brigades of the British empire for being accused of and then convicted of selling secrets to Russian agents, he joins a different brigade and eventually winds up having to deal with his accusers and the real culprits, everything being shifted from London to a remote part of India where an insurgency is being stoked by the Russians. The similarity to what is happening today in Afghanistan makes this rather intriguing, though the best parts occur in London before the action shifts to India. Peter Lawford was an original Rat Pack member (with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., etc..), and even if this film is pre Rat Pack, with this film you can see why he'd later fit in so well in Las Vegas. Even as he's being officially kicked out of his elite brigade in front of all the assembled ranks, which is one of the films better parts, he still looks like he could care less. On the lam in London for escaping from the civilian police, he gets a job as a bartender in a rundown section of town and listens in on and then butts into a conversation as a sergeant is busy trying to pick up on a supposedly loose woman. Lawford's character is socially above them, but due to the circumstances he's now at the bottom of the social ladder in civilian society. When he joins another regiment he comes in as a private, yet through it all this guy has undeniable class and a saving sense of humor. The film itself isn't half bad, as Lawford's character finds out who actually did sell those military secrets. His character's eventual reinstatement into his rightful place in the military and society is a foregone conclusion. The battle scenes are filmed on location (in Southern California?), and aren't that impressive. What's more impressive is what the Russians do to the real culprit in another scene which is the most intense in a film that lacks, for the most part, intensity.