The Lost Patrol

Dir. John Ford 73 Minutes

USA 1934

Starring: Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, J.M. Kerrigan, Billy Bevan

***/*****

The Lost Patrol is a curious early film from John Ford that has so many intriguing moving parts that fail to come together in any type of worthwhile whole, and the fact that it ultimately does not entirely work is slightly heartbreaking as a result of how interesting those parts are individually. The wonderfully slim narrative focuses on a group of British soldiers during World War I lost in the Mesopotamian desert. As they navigate their way through this peril, they are stalked by the unseen Arab enemy, which strikes as suddenly and as ruthlessly as expected. Ford’s working of this metaphor of the unseen seems to reflect on the “unseen” effects that war has on a person, and the explicitness of this symbolism feels in line with his later The Fugitive (bafflingly held in a lower regard than some of his major works). Though even if one critiques that it is too “obvious” of a connection between conflict and ultimate statement, its effective and dramatic impact is undeniable, with some sequences downright creepy in their unknown element. The ensemble ranges in personality, with the core group all getting a "moment", though Karloff comes close to stealing the whole affair as the highly religious Sanders. The role was meant to showcase a range in Karloff, on the verge of being typecast as a result of the massive success of Frankenstein and other horror adjacent pictures, and there is a marvelous humanity in his character here (though Karloff's very appearance raises the estimation of the film he is in by a few pegs regardless). Ultimately, the existential impact of the narrative is quite strong, though in many respects it seems easy to wish that Ford tackled this project a few years later. It is stripped of much fat and has moments that are quite haunting, but the picture does not come together quite as nicely as one hopes from the myriad promising elements. 

As a parting note, is there a little Leone's For a Few Dollars More in the opening death?

​October 15th, 2019