The Horsemen ** (1971, Omar Sharif, Leigh Taylor-Young, Jack Palance) – Classic Movie Review 8527

Director John Frankenheimer’s 1971 macho action adventure drama The Horsemen is propelled with a sterling performance by Omar Sharif as Uraz, the son of sheikh Tursen (Jack Palance), wounded and humiliated in a barbaric variant of polo, who has his leg amputated and sets out to reaffirm his place as the greatest horseman in the mountainous feudal Sunni kingdom of Afghanistan.

The Horsemen is intriguing, rather than exciting material, brought to the screen with an intelligent screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, carefully taken from Joseph Kessel’s novel, lukewarm handling by Frankenheimer and ravishing Eastmancolor photography by Claude Renoir and James Wong Howe (uncredited) in Afghanistan and Spain.

Something more distinguished and exciting was obviously planned, and it is more than just a little hard to swallow the casting of Palance as Sharif’s dad, but it remains intriguing throughout.

Also in the cast are Leigh Taylor-Young, Peter Jeffrey, Mohammad Shamsi, David de Keyser, George Murcell, Eric Pohlmann, Saeed Jaffrey, Vernon Dobtcheff, Alan Webb, Despo, Milton Reid, John Ruddock and Leon Lissek.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8527

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