The Lost Patrol

During World War I, a group of British cavalrymen, lost in the Mesopotamian desert, falls prey to unseen Arab snipers.

The Lost Patrol is a tight psychological drama from director John Ford.

The film is a model of efficiency, wasting no time in establishing the film’s premise and atmosphere as it opens with a British cavalry man on horseback in the desert. It’s a wide shot, showing the expanse and desolation of the surroundings. Then a muffled gunshot rings out and the man falls forward, dead.

The rest of the squadron soon stumble across an oasis providing food, water, and shelter, but this paradise soon becomes a prison. Surrounded by unseen snipers, the men cannot venture outside the small site, though some inevitably do only to drop dead after a few steps. Under such stress, the men begin to collapse psychologically, while their sergeant struggles to hold things together.

If the plot sounds a little like Predator it’s because that sci-fi actioner more or less borrowed the story of The Lost Patrol and subbed the jungle for the desert, and an alien for the Arabs. Ford’s version does a great job exploring the individual soldier’s psyche’s while simultaneously ratcheting up the tension. Indeed, by the time the finale rolls around the film feels more akin to a horror story than any other genre.

There are problems though, the biggest of which is Boris Karloff. Karloff, in one of his final non-horror roles before he would be forever typecast in the genre does a wonderful job toward the end of the film when his character descends into madness, but he’s far too over-the-top early on, a surprising misstep by the usually reserved actor. It’s equally surprising that Ford didn’t pick up on it and have Karloff tone it down, but regardless his early emoting doesn’t work and weakens the film’s first two acts.

Other than Karloff’s early turn, there isn’t much not to like about The Lost Patrol. It’s a good story well told, and easily worth a look.