North West Frontier

I found it by accident on YouTube and what a pleasant surprise it turned out top be. An action film set in British India with a superb script. Lauren Bacall, Kenneth More and Herbert Lom lead the cast. A gripping train raid that never lets go. The director is J Lee Thompson and in my movie going life, J Lee Thompson is associated with many unexpected treats. "Tiger Bay" for instance, remember that one? With Hayley Mills and Horst Buchholz or the insane Shirley MacLaine comedy "What A Way To Go" Not to mention "The Guns Of Navarone" or the original "Cape Fear" . Here, Thompson excels. A suspenseful, thrilling tale told by a master. .

The movie opens in a way Hollywood could never do, just more dramatic and colourful than Hollywood does. This movie gave more back than I expected. It is a breathtaking, breathholding, exciting little movie. You feel like you are really there in India, on the rickety old train. I love that they used old machinery instead of making it unrealistic the way Hollywood might.

I was not expecting much from Lauren Bacall but she also gave back more than was required. Her scenes with the young Indian boy are touching. She obviously has a way with children in real life as well. The song Swing, Swing Together could make me weep, it's so wonderful. The movie is not well known but so well done. It's just a very well done one that everyone can enjoy. There are some questionable characters on the train, you are left wondering why this one is so twitchy, what is that one's secret?

I taped this movie simply because it co-starred Lauren Bacall, and while I expected the movie to be good, it far exceeded my expectations. North West Frontier, is a terrifically paced, exciting adventure. Bacall co-stars as a governess who must escort a young heir to the Hindu throne through a cross country Indian battlefield. Helping her to do this is a British solider and a random assortment of civilians along for the ride. Herbert Lom is wonderfully creepy - but I won't say why. Definately a movie to check out.

J. Lee Thompson's enjoyably imperialist if dated adventure appeared, from a creative point of view, at the most successful period of his variable 40-year career. Between 1957 and 1962 he directed such striking films as Woman In A Dressing Gown, Ice Cold In Alex and Tiger Bay, before concluding a continuous good run with The Guns Of Navarone and Cape Fear. Squeezed between Alex and Navarone, North West Frontier (aka: Flame Over India) shows many of the same characteristics of bravery and derring-do - the present film only differing in that it wears its old fashioned politics most conspicuously on its sleeve, and sets its adventure amidst the conflicts of an earlier generation, that of 1905 in India.

A stolid Kenneth More plays Captain Scott, charged with escorting a young Indian prince 300 miles to safety through rebel held territory, the principal journey of which is aboard a train filled with a compliment of contrasting passengers. There's a feisty American woman Catherine Wyatt (Lauren Bacall); a suspicious half-caste called Van Leyden (Herbert Lom); Bridie, a stereotypical British gent (Wilfred Hyde-White); the arms dealer Peters (Eugene Dickers), as well as Lady Windham, (Ursula Jeans). Outside of this circle of principals is the amiably compliant engine driver Gupta, played by veteran Asian actor-director I.S. Johar. Johar appeared in relatively few British films, but was to pop up again in another British classic a few years down the line, Lawrence Of Arabia (1962). It was rare for Asian personalities to appear with any great consequence in British cinema at that time, and it is a tribute to Johar that he brings a modicum of dignity to a role otherwise written full of typical obsequiousness.

It's the driver who fills the vacuum between the rebellious natives, their sympathisers and the humane smugness of the British ("Half the world mocks us, and half the world is only civilised because of us," says Lady Windham). Despite his subservience Gupta declines to do more to further his own cause or join in the Hindu Muslim strife fomenting around him: "Guns for Gupta? Oh no sir... other man has different religion, why should Gupta mind?" By constantly referring to himself in the third person, 'Gupta' assumes a greater significance than a single personality - perhaps even more than Little India the train also carries safely or the fleeing prince, Gupta is a symbol of his country, a moderate whose survival is paramount if the British are to be justified.

As gorgeously photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth, the setting in Thompson's film is a dusty, treacherous environment, the hills and plains home to bloodthirsty rebels, ruthless hordes seeking to destroy civilisation. A decade later, Unsworth was to work on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In North West Frontier we are confronted with another hostile environment, much of which is equally inscrutable to the Europeans who travel through it. As previously noted, much of the action takes places in the environs of the train; its engine nicknamed 'Victoria' which soon assumes the worthiness of England itself. As Van Leyden acidly observes: "Our little train is like our little world, trundling through space." Surrounded by revolting locals, facing a series of physical obstacles to progress, the 'little world' has to fall back on itself, sustaining itself with bravery and improvisation to some how 'make it'.

Like Hauptmann Otto Lutz in Thompson's Ice Cold In Alex of two years before, Van Leyden is an outsider, brought within the bosom of a small, travelling, British orientated community. Similarly, he provokes an ethical debate that provides the most interesting dialogue of the film. Unlike Hauptmann however, he eventually proves a rotten egg - but not without first providing some lines which to the modern ear seem far less threatening and radical than the original writers intended them to be. With ironical relish Van Leyden reads Gibbons' Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, and along the way loses few chances to snipe sarcastically at those around him: "You think God is only on the side of the British?" he jibes, "See what happens when the British are not around to keep order?" all the while arguing that those who oppose them are "not children (but) grown men… fighting for the freedom of their own country." Van Leyden is also a key player in many of the most memorable scenes of the film - inncluding the one that most remember, as he stands menacingly just behind the young prince who's playing close to the dangerous, whirling spokes of a pump wheel.

If Van Leyden eventually oversteps the mark of a reasoned (and reasonable) response to British occupation, then he finds a suitable opponent in Captain Scott. As played by the More, the bluff and unimaginative soldier has some explaining to do himself, principally to Wyatt, who is less than impressed by his rigid adherence to his martial calling. Despite her growing romantic interest in him she is not entirely convinced by his protestation that soldiers "are not machines... we're humans like anyone else." Van Leyden's bitter comment on British-led civil order in mind, it is she who leads the most striking sequence in the film, as the Empress of India encounters the massacre of the refugees at Bihvandi Pura. In these post-Rwandan, post-Reverend Jim Jones days, the massacred innocents in North West Frontier can still shock, if now sickeningly familiar. Thompson's viewers would probably have had to cast their minds back to Second World War atrocities to gain a context and the sight almost jolts matters to radical attention.

But this is a jolly old adventure; the British can clearly not be implicated in what is a native tragedy, wrought by natives, and so the audience is not permitted to stay at Massacre Halt too long. By the time the train reaches the end of its journey there's been time to sing the boating song from the Henley Regatta without a trace of irony, to outsmart the attacking insurgents and finally see off Van Leyden's dastardly sort. Despite the last minute appearance of caricatured British officer, Thompson's film ends aptly enough on a Kipling quote, and once again all seems so clear cut and right in the world... some will miss the cynicism of a modern film. Others will revel in it.

We are in British India, Moslem rebels want to kill a young Hindu prince and thus killing his family blood line. The British army are charged with the task of ensuring the prince is safely escorted from the troubled provinces. The duty falls to one intrepid Captain Scott, the only chance to achieve the aim is by train, with his allies on board being a rather unique group of individuals, can Scott achieve the mission against the mounting odds?.

North West Frontier has everything a great action adventure should have, whilst also adding in tension, drama and an array of wonderfully colourful characters. The opening to the film is pulsating, as Scott has to fight off the rebels whilst smuggling the prince and his governess out to safety. From then on we are on a train journey that is rich with enjoyment, the tension mounts among the passengers, not least because of the class and cultural differences, and perhaps allmotives are not in alignment? But they must club together if they are to survive this dangerous journey.

Kenneth Moore, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom and Wilfrid Hyde-White (comedy gold when under attack) are all pulling together to make a cracking yarn. Directing duties falls to J. Lee Thompson, whose CV boasts "Ice Cold In Alex", "The Guns Of Navarone" and "Cape Fear", so this material was thankfully in very safe hands. The photography from Geoffrey Unsworth is top notch, barren and desolate landscapes beautifully realising the peril of the passengers' journey, whilst the music from Mischa Spoliansky leaves a lasting impression.

This train may well be crammed full of genre stereotypes, and sure enough the patronising nature of the piece is dated at the edges, but this remains a gloriously enjoyable film that the whole family can readily digest. 9/10