North West Frontier [Flame Over India] **** (1959, Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom, Ursula Jeans, Wilfrid Hyde White, I S Johar, Eugene Deckers, Ian Hunter) – Classic Movie Review 7762

Director J Lee Thompson’s 1959 British adventure North West Frontier [Flame Over India] stars Kenneth More as dashing, British army hero Captain William Charles Willoughby Scott, who is asked to take away an Indian Hindu boy princeling, Prince Kishan (Govind Raja Ross) to safety from a revolt of Muslim tribesmen in 1905 after the Muslim rebels attack a fortress and kill a Hindu maharajah. The film is set in the North West Frontier Province of British India, which is now in Pakistan.

North West Frontier is an entertaining, dynamic, old-fashioned adventure movie from a long-ago era, achieving a lot on what seems a remarkably low budget of £500,000. More gets away with it with an insouciant tongue-in-cheekiness, Herbert Lom is a splendid villain as half-Dutch, half-Indonesian Muslim journalist Mr Peter van Leyden, and I S Johar is a scene-stealing train driver, Gupta, who cares for the Empress of India, the old engine with carriage the British captain discovers in the Haserabad  railway yard and commandeers to try to lead its various passengers to safety in Kalapur.

The passengers include American widow Mrs Catherine Wyatt (Lauren Bacall), Prince Kishan, journalist Mr Peter van Leyden (Herbert Lom), arms dealer Mr Peters (Eugene Deckers), British ex-patriate Mr Bridie (Wilfrid Hyde White), the governor’s wife Lady Wyndham (Ursula Jeans) and two Indians NCOs.

Other assets include Robin Estridge’s exciting screenplay, Geoffrey Unsworth’s pretty Eastman Color widescreen location cinematography and Director J Lee Thompson’s taut, intense, propulsive direction, with plenty of tension and lots of thrilling moments throughout. Only a bored-seeming Lauren Bacall as American widow Mrs Catherine Wyatt, the princeling’s tough-talking nanny/ governess, gives too little.

Filming in India took place at the Amber Fort, in Rajasthan, while many of the rail sequences were shot in the province of Granada in southern Spain. Full-sized replicas of the locomotive, rolling stock and part of the bridge were constructed for filming on the sound stage at Pinewood Studios, London.

Also in the cast are Ursula Jeans, Wilfrid Hyde White, I S Johar, Eugene Deckers, Ian Hunter, Eugene Deckers, Jack Gwillim, Govind Raja Ross, Basil Hoskins, Moultrie Kelsall, Lionel Murton, Peter Lloyd and Howard Marion-Crawford.

It is adapted from a screenplay by Frank S Nugent, with an original story by Patrick Ford and Will Price. The story has similarities with the one in J Lee Thompson’s Ice Cold in Alex (1958).

It was released in America as Flame Over India with top billing on the film and poster for Lauren Bacall, was released in Australia as and Empress of India.

North West Frontier [Flame Over India] [Empress of India] is directed by J Lee Thompson, runs 128 minutes, is made by The Rank Organisation, is released by Rank (UK) and 20th Century Fox (US), is written by Robin Estridge, adapted from a screenplay by Frank S Nugent, with an original story by Patrick Ford and Will Price, is shot in Eastman Color and CinemaScope by Geoffrey Unsworth, is produced by Earl St John and Marcel Hellman, is scored by Mischa Spoliansky and is designed by Alex Vetchinsky.

Bacall called it ‘a good little movie with a stupid title’ [Flame Over India]. Its success at the British box office in 1959 led to J Lee Thompson’s American career as a director, making The Guns of Navarone in 1961, also with cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth.

The railway in this film was also used in Seven Guns for the MacGregors (1966), Red Sun (1971) and The Long Duel (1967).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7762

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