La carica dei Kyber

Henry King directed Tyrone Power in ll pictures (This one was number nine) beginning with "Lloyds of London," which first shot the young actor to stardom...

King directed many of Power's best pictures including "In Old Chicago," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Jesse James," "The Black Rose," "Captain From Castile" and "Prince of Foxes"...

Power was a great actor able to star in everything from Musicals and Westerns to historical epics and swashbucklers... He was originally meant to do the first CinemaScope film, "The Robe" in 1953, but ended up with "The King of the Khyber Rifles" instead.

Power gives adequate performance as Alan King, a half-caste British army captain charging around the hills of India with courage and pride...

He crushes a rebel uprising led by a boyhood friend, and engages in a fight-to-the-death... He struggles up and down rocky cliffs of the Himalayan Mountain Ranges and romances his commanding officer's daughter... all against the backdrop of a legendary Indian Mutiny (also called Sepoy Mutiny)

Michael Rennie is cast as the tall Brigadier General Maitland who judges King (Tyrone Power) by his special qualifications, appointing him commander of the Khyber Riflemen...

Rennie's pretty daughter Susan (Terry Moore) finds herself attracted to the handsome captain, causing a rivalry between King and Lieutenant Heath (John Justin), the officer who spread the news about King's mixed racial descent...

Guy Rolfe is the ruthless Karram Khan, a rebel who tries to end the British rule... He warns King: "Last night you spare my life, now I return the gesture. But we will meet again and when we do, there will be no hesitation."

The most dramatic moment of the motion picture is the spearing to death of four helpless British captives tied to a long wooden mast, waiting in fear to be executed by Khan's men... Power is also fastened, expecting the same fate, to be thrust in the chest by a deadly weapon...

The film, spectacularly directed by a sure-handed craftsman, is sufficiently picturesque with bright and shining landscapes, very entertaining with an alarming storm and a rousing climax in which Power leads a furious assault filling the giant CinemaScope screen with impressive action sequences...

Director Henry King and star Tyrone Power teamed up for their ninth film, almost 20 years after King helped Power shoot to stardom when he chose him as Jonathan in "Lloyds of London." Why do I think Power was somewhat less ebullient this time around. By 1953, he was surely in a mad rush to finish his contract with Fox, as he had already formed his own production company.

"King of the Khyber Rifles" gets the full major picture treatment, in CinemaScope, and it is a film filled with battles, adventure, panaromas, and a little romance thrown in. You can't have Tyrone Power in a movie without some of that! He plays a half-caste who is put in charge of the Khyber Rifles. Eventually, he is given the assignment of putting down a rebellion led by a childhood friend, Karram Khan, menacingly played by Guy Rolfe. Terry Moore plays the British daughter of the brigadier general (Michael Rennie) who falls in love with Power, and that's a forbidden love. In real life, when she first saw the actor, she was so staggered that she developed a facial tic. Power asked King if they could sit quietly and run lines before shooting the scene, which allowed her to calm down. She's fairly vapid in the role.

The last part of the movie is very exciting and beautifully photographed. The film definitely hold's one's interest.

Power looks great - handsome and tanned, as Lieutenant King, but it's really not much of a role. The romantic scenes are marvelous, and he does display a lot of physical prowess. He was unfortunately one of the huge stars of the golden era who did not do a lot of great pictures. Ironically, some of his films not highly thought of at the time have found appreciative audiences today, 47 years after his death. Too bad he's not here to see it.

Previously filmed by John Ford in 1929 with Victor McLaglen as 'The Black Watch'. This handsome-looking Empire film set in 1857 is actually a far more sombre, character-driven film than the swashbuckler the title suggests - with an atmospheric score by Bernard Herrmann - in which Tyrone Power's swarthy complexion here sees him play a haste caste romancing a pert young Terry Moore playing the daughter of General Michael Rennie and caught between the Regiment and a very saturnine Guy Rolfe as his brother.

Sweeping, exciting spectacle, though on a bit lesser scale than usual. Power is a mixed-race (half British/half Indian) British officer in India battling the British class system on one side, the Indian caste system on the other side, racism from both sides, and rampaging, rebellious natives on all sides. Although he lacked the dynamism and ebullient personality of fellow swashbuckler Errol Flynn, Power nevertheless handled these kinds of action roles well, and was a good enough actor to pull them off believably. Terry Moore is, as always, miscast--she has the sunny demeanor of a USC cheerleader rather than the demure, dignified charm one would expect of the daughter of a senior, upper-class British officer. Michael Rennie's lip is properly stiff as the British commander, and Guy Rolfe is thoroughly effective as Power's megalomaniacal, menacing half-brother who is the leader of the rebels. Several extremely well staged action scenes--particularly at the climax--some very tense moments, crisp and beautiful Technicolor photography and Power's not-inconsiderable presence and charm make this a must-see for adventure fans--if they can ever find the damn thing. As mentioned previously, it hardly ever shows up on television and it's not out--legitimately, at least--on video or DVD yet.

Based on Talbot Mundy's best and most famous novel, which unfortunately I was an expert on, this film was a total disappointment, in spite of its great assets of mainly stupendous mountain scenery and Bernard Herrmann's music. But the mountain scenery was nothing at all about the famous Khyber pass but all shot in California, and above all, the splendid story of Talbot Mundy's secret agent thriller of jihadism and the cutting of heads even 160 years ago by taliban rebels and with a dancing queen of beauty at the centre of intrigue, also involving some archaeology and reminiscenses of Alexander the Great's famous visit to Afghanistan, was reduced to a cheap and petty pulp fiction of the commonest of Hollywood clichés. The acting is not very good either. The only one making a strong impression by his stage presence and acting is Guy Rolfe as the villain, the rebel king, while supporting parts, such as John Justin and Michael Rennie, also make a good job, while Terry Moore is a complete disaster. However could Tyrone Power fall in love with such a nuisance of a bobby-soxer? It's as far from credible as anything could be. Tyrone Power is himself, and that's enough for him - with such a face he never even needed to act.

A great pity for a great story to be so poorly handled and reduced to mere superficial entertainment. Talbot Mundy was a theosophist and mystic who wrote many books, and this one could have been made into as great a Kipling epic as "The Man who Wanted to be King".