The Brigand of Kandahar

Despite a game performance from Oliver Reed, The Brigand of Kandahar is a wildly uneven and ultimately disappointing adventure film from Hammer Film Productions.

Set in 1850, on the North-West Frontier of India, the story sees Ronald Lewis play a British Indian Army officer who’s jailed on racially motivated charges. He escapes and joins a brigand group led by Reed but struggles with their savagery.

Like all the performers playing Middle-Eastern characters, Lewis and Reed sport brown-face makeup. While unfortunate, this was commonplace at the time, and the performances eschew any derogatory stereotypes or accents.

Makeup aside, Lewis underwhelms. He does a respectable job, but the role harkens back to the Errol Flynn adventure of the ’30s, and Lewis lacks Flynn’s innate charisma and energy.

Reed fares better, despite regarding the film as “The worst film I ever made for Hammer.”¹ Though equally miscast, he seems aware of it, and eschews any semblance of cultural realism. Instead, he plays an over-the-top warlord, sporting his usual twinkle of mischief in his smile and eyes. He’s under-used, disappearing for large segments before an early exit—disappointing as he’s the film’s biggest asset.

The second-largest asset comes via its large-scale battle scenes, notably an ambush that sees the British forces led into a basin where scores of extras reveal themselves on the surrounding hills and open fire as scores more cavalry thunder down the hillside on horseback.

But these scenes were actually cut footage from the 1956 film, Zarak starring Victor Mature, gifted to Hammer as part of their production deal with Columbia. This is especially noticeable when cutting from the battle to this film’s principals, who aren’t even outdoors, but on an Elstree soundstage, surrounded by paper-mache boulders in front of a matte backdrop. Compounding matters, the film tries to insert the principals into the battle via awkward rear projection, making an already cheap production look even cheaper. At least it explains why the brigand forces all sport pointy white hoods in the battles.

A better script might have made it easier to overlook such production limitations, but director John Gilling’s offering proves tepid, featuring predictable plot points, and a muddled ending which tries to be both pro and anti-war, condemning the British officers while applauding the troops. This lack of edge permeates Gilling’s script, which mistakes plot for drama, offering a film in which a lot happens, but nothing grabs us. While Gilling uses racism for his inciting incident, that aspect is never explored. Then again, considering Lewis is white, perhaps that’s for the best.

Gilling originally wrote the script in the late ’50s for Warwick studios as a direct sequel to Zarak, on which he worked as a second-unit director.² Given the minuscule budget and recycled script and footage, one suspects this film was born out of contractual obligation as it represented the final film in Hammer and Columbia’s production deal. Whatever the reason, it’s a picture I suspect all involved would rather forget.