In the late 1950s the Rank Film organisation made a concerted effort to take on the international market, turning out lots of action/adventure tales, usually in colour with at least one Hollywood name, co-production with a Hollywood studios, in CinemaScope and set in an exotic corner of the Empire. This was probably the best, an elaborate and enjoyable train movie, well directed by J Lee Thompson at his peak.
It stars Kenneth More in cheery action hero mode, very Douglas Bader. He's a British officer asked by a Hindu ruler to escort his young son across country with Muslims in pursuit. Most of the story takes place on and around a train, with a cross section of passengers snapping at each other in between action sequences.
This is at its best when focusing on the action stuff. There's some terrific spectacle (teems of extras rushing in attack, scores of corpses at a railway station), good action (the initial escape, starting the train, crossing a desolate bridge) and impressive production values. The story could have done with a bit more of a death toll though - one or two of the good characters dying would have made it more exciting, if only because we'd be less sure who would survive. (Even the people running the fort who are left behind are allowed to live.)
It's not as good with the talks on the train. The film sort of tries to acknowledge the changes to Britain's position in the world since the war but does it defensively. British policy and hypocrisy is criticised, but by a journalist who turns out to be a murderous fanatic, a gun runner, and a governess who falls for a soldier and comes to realise how awesome the British are, so it's not really a fair fight, and the Brit characters always have the last word. There's a fascinating defensiveness and sookiness about attitudes to British imperialism in this movie: "half the world is only civilised because we made it so", "that's all the thanks we ever get", etc.
Herbert Lom is a surprisingly sympathetic villain - although that old hoard standby, a half-caste (and a Muslim a boot), who tries to kill a child (several times - he keeps whimping out), you do feel for him because he just wants a country where he belongs. Wilfred Hyde White and Ursula Jeans sip tea and act pukka (why not kill off one of them) and I.S. Johar is funny as the train driver.
Lauren Bacall is professional as always but I couldn't help feeling she was miscast - she's too contemporary or something (Bacall isn't in that many period films). Her romance with More never quite works - maybe this is part of the reason why the movie never enjoyed the same success in the US as it did in Britain.
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