The Lost Patrol
Tags: insanity

Plot synopsis:
During World War I, the commanding officer of a small British patrol in the Mesopotamian desert is shot and killed by an unseen Arab sniper, leaving the Sergeant at a loss, since he had not been told what their mission is. He decides to try to rejoin the brigade, though he does not know where they are or where he is.
Eventually, the 11 men in his unit reach an oasis. During the night, one of the sentries is killed, the other seriously wounded, and all their horses are stolen, leaving them stranded. One by one, the remaining men are picked off by the unseen enemy. In desperation, the Sergeant sends two men chosen by lot on foot for help, but they are caught and tortured to death, before their bodies are sent back. Abelson, suffering from heat exhaustion, sees a mirage and wanders into deadly fire. The pilot of a British biplane spots the survivors, but nonchalantly lands nearby and is killed before he can be warned. The men take the machine gun from the aircraft then set the plane on fire in a desperate bid to signal British troops. Sanders, a religious fanatic, goes mad and walks into deadly fire.
In the end, only the Sergeant is left. When the six Arab soldiers finally show themselves, he manages to kill them all with the machine gun from the aircraft. Moments later, another British patrol arrives, attracted by the smoke from the burning aircraft.

Review: A brave group (Wallace Ford , Boris Karloff , Reginald Denny , among others) of British cavalrymen lost in the desert are shot by the Arabs (Francis Ford , John Ford's older brother , appears in an uncredited role as an Arab) , one by one and twelve battered fighting men battle it out to the finish .
Dead the commander officer they are subsequently commanded by the sergeant (Victor McLagen) , then arise boiling passions in the burning sands .The movie gets brief psychological remarks about diverse character studios , especially the religious fanatic Karloff and although is completely developed on the wide desert , the tale results to be claustrophobic .
Magnificent direction by the master John Ford and excellent interpretations make this a very good film .
The second film version of an archetypal adventure story is arguably the best despite some dated elements; John Ford deftly handles the proceedings and Max Steiner's stirring score - which at times foreshadows his later one for CASABLANCA (1942) - is a major asset.
The solid cast of character actors is highlighted by Boris Karloff's remarkable turn as a religious fanatic who is slowly driven crazy by the amorality of his comrades and the futility of their struggle against unseen Arab attackers.
The film can not only be seen to form part of the "British Empire" sub-genre of adventure films - with THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER (1935), THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936), THE FOUR FEATHERS (1939) and GUNGA DIN (1939) being its most notable contemporary examples - but, if one were to stretch it a bit, also paves the way for more modern stuff like John Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976).
A fine Max Steiner soundtrack with excellent performances by Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Reginald Denny and rest of cast.
THE LOST PATROL from the British Army in Mesopotamia desperately defends itself in a tiny oasis from Arab attackers.John Ford directed this powerful Great War tale of agonizing heartbreak and desperate perseverance.
Ford craftily keeps the Arabs unseen for an hour, making the implacable desolation of the sun scorched desert the men's worst enemy.British actor Victor McLaglen is the absolute backbone of the film.
Beefy McLaglen--who had his own distinguished military career in World War One--is perfectly believable as the stalwart sergeant with the task of keeping his men alive at the water hole until relief can arrive.
Bullying, blustering, brave, his is a heroic performance of a man fighting titanic odds.Gaunt Boris Karloff appears as a religiously fanatical private; his final scene, carrying a large cross up a dune, is especially memorable.
A dozen British soldiers on patrol in the Mesopotamian desert are attacked by an unseen force of Arabs.
This is a rip-roaring adventure film set in the Mesopotamian desert during the First World War. It concerns a detachment of British soldiers holed up in a desert camp, where they are picked off one at a time by Arab snipers.
Victor McLaglen's the star of the show, and very believable, as he had in fact played this sort of role in real-life, as a soldier, and always looked good in a uniform.
Somehow this works in the movie's favor, as when McLaglen lurches at another character and the music accompanies his movement in such a way as to evoke King King, which Steiner had scored the previous year.
Karloff's religious fanatic is so over the top that he might have thrown the film off, yet Ford, rather than diminishing the character, decides to give him more screen time.
John Ford's critically acclaimed film has lost some of its punch, but still delivers an emotional feeling of helplessness, as the lost patrol is menaced by unseen Arabs, and are picked off one by one until few are left.
The lost patrol in this story is a group of British enlisted men, who've gotten separated from the main body of their regiment, and are in complete disarray due to the death from sniper fire of their patrol leader, which we see at the start of the film.
In attempting to hold ground, they are routinely eliminated by the Arab population of the region through the action of snipers, leaving only their Sergeant (McLaglen) to be rescued when the rest of the column finds the patrol location at the close of the film.The plot of the film is built around the trauma of battle fatigue, and the exhaustion of men sent to fight a war in a culture that is not their own.
I was pleasantly surprised to find in viewing this film that John Ford strove to keep the portrayal of the racist current and cultural supremacy ideas that always exist among invading armies to a minimum, and instead chose to focus on the contradictions in the lives of these men so far away from their homes in England.
Victor McLaglen leads the cast, with able support from Reginald Denny as a mercenary, Wallace Ford as a displaced vaudevillian, and Boris Karloff as a religious fanatic.
Among the many fine supporting cast members is Alan Hale Sr. in an almost invisible part, but for the few seconds he's on, he's really on.Like many others, I'd heard from the very first review I'd seen of this film written by Denis Gifford in his biography of Boris Karloff "The Man, the Monster, the Movies" (1973) that Karloff is way over the top in his portrayal.
But that's just an opinion.THE LOST PATROL is an interesting period piece, and for admirers of the work of John Ford, I believe it's a must see.
Karloff, taking a break from a string of horror films he was making during the time, is horribly over-the-top as a religious fanatic.
The Lost Patrol (1934)A John Ford war movie five years before his breakthrough movie, "Stagecoach," is interesting at least in relation to his career.
It doesn't get more basic than that.The Lost Patrol is a short running film, but manages to pack in a lot of good characterization.
The various military types are shown here, everyone from the hedonistic Reginald Denny, to the fanatically religious Boris Karloff, to the callow youth Douglas Walton, to the tough professional soldier Victor McLaglen in charge of them all.
John Ford directed this film and in McLaglen used one of his favorite players, a year before getting an Oscar for that other Ford classic, The Informer.
As typical in a Ford film, there are some beautiful shots of the vast Mesopotamian desert over which our own troops now fight with a lot better communications and weaponry than these guys had.
Most later films, including lesser Westerns of the 1950s, did it a whole lot better.So many of the characters and parts of the plot of "The Lost Patrol" were to become clichés, and this word is one that sprang to mind many times when viewing the film.
All too often in movies the military characters are just cyphers there to spout lines and despite some criticisms of how the parts are played you do believe that these guys are a very good cross section of the British army in 1917 .
And of course all the tension centres around on who gets killed off next , a bit like TEN LITTLE INDIANS set in the desert A flawed film whose dated qualities stop far short of it being called a classic .
This early Black and White film depicts the story of a British Desert Patrol, written by Philip MacDonald and is directed by John Ford.
From then on, the cast which has Victor McLaglen playing The Sergeant arrive at a desert Oasis and do their best to survive against desert tribesmen who are systematically killing the soldiers.
Boris Karloff plays Sanders, a conscience ridden soldier who succumbs to the desert isolation by becoming a religious fanatic.
With Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny and Alan Hale in the cast, the movie becomes a study of men, each with his own thoughts on life.
By the time he made The Lost Patrol, Ford was already an accomplished director, with a good number of silent and sound films to his credit, and you can see his skill here with pictorial composition, action shots, and landscapes.
Then again, one of the few Ford movies I find unwatchable is a much-praised Irish movie full of fighting and other "colorful" behavior--The Quiet Man.Max Steiner's score for The Lost Patrol has also been praised.
With this film now being 80 years old, I believe that it deserves to be at least cut some sort of slack in spite of its many flaws and irksome short-comings.But, with that said, the truth is, when it comes to a "War" picture (this time it being WW1), The Lost Patrol was actually quite a bore for the most part.This picture's story suffered considerably from it containing far too much talk-talk-talk and not enough action.As well, this film was very racist in its depiction and attitude towards Arabs who were never given a fair chance to be viewed as "real" people (as the English soldiers were).Instead, the Arabs were clearly portrayed as being vicious (almost unseen) assassins (always dressed in traditional Arab garb) who were pretty much summed up perfectly in the saying that goes - "There's no good Arab like a dead Arab." I'd say that these Arabs (who never utter a single word) were even more dehumanized than were the Indians in so many of director John Ford's later pictures.Set in the year 1917, one of The Lost Patrol's pluses was the impressive setting which took place in Iraq's Mesopotiama desert (which was in reality the Arizona desert).The stark, desolate beauty of this location was very nicely photographed and this greatly enhanced the "lost" and hopeless situation of the British soldiers who were being stalked across this vast, sandy plain by their cunning enemy who knew this endless wasteland like the back of their own hand.One of this film's biggest deficits was Boris Karloff as Sanders, the raving, religious nutter who spewed out passages from The Bible as if he were doing it while in the midst of a painful defecation.Believe me, Karloff's over-the-top, unintentionally laughable performance was so bad that it literally stank to the high heavens.Filmed in b&w, this picture (with its all-male cast), thankfully, only had a running time of just 72 minutes..
Boris Karloff in a John Ford Movie?
A patrol of British soldiers is lost in the Mesopotamian desert in WWI.
We join one such patrol as the senior officer is killed by a sniper and the group are left with no orders and no idea where they are in the desert.In theory this film should be a dark and tense film that starts with the type of sunny, "lads together" squadron of men but gradually descends into tension and in fighting as the unseen forces close in on them.
The limitations of the film are obvious early on because this is very much of its time and it hasn't dated that well in areas such as acting but as the film goes on these slipped away for me as I got sucked into it more and more.Ford contrasts the wide open space of the desert with the confines of the oasis hut really well to produce the two effects at the same time  like dying of dehydration in the middle of an ocean.
Karloff was pretty poor early on because he did tend to exaggerate everything as he does, however later in the film this doesn't stand out as badly (although it is hardly "good" at any point).
A bunch of men get lost in the windy desert oasis of the Foreign Legion, and can't help but get picked off by unseen Arab enemies.
Led by intrepid (and Oscar winner for 1935's The Informer) Victor McLaglen and tempted by super-religious Boris Karloff (in another "pre-Frank role") to turn to God, this disbanded band of soldiers must fight to the death in 100+ degree heat.
These movies set in minimalist, claustrophobic locales have to rely on dialogue, internecine squabbling, and rescue of some sort to prevail to its viewers...The Lost Patrol is no different, and early Karloff gives an eerie view into what was to come in his future roles and his effective use of that Britich baritone, slight lispy voice.
This starts out on a very dramatic note as the officer in charge of a British patrol somewhere in the desert (it's presumably World War I and the desert is presumably in Iraq, since later in the movie there's a mention of "Mesopotamia") is shot by a sniper as he leads his troops.
This provides water and shelter, but also makes them a fairly easy target for the mysterious snipers, who start to pick the patrol off one by one.This is a pretty good movie.
In addition to Victor McLaglen as the Sargeant, the cast is highlighted by Boris Karloff as a soldier who's also a religious fanatic.
Perhaps because the sound quality was so bad, perhaps because nothing much seemed to be happening, but I didn't really like this film.It was rather downbeat, frankly.However, Victor McLaglen gave one of his best performances.He was not a bigger-than-life character, not a stereotype, but very life-like.Wallace Ford also gave one of his best performances, in what was one of his best roles.Watching this on TCM, I heard Robert Osborne say Boris Karloff's performance drew mixed reviews, and I come down on the side of those who said he was exaggerated.Since it is a classic, I believe everyone ought to see this, at least once.
THE LOST PATROL plods along in the desert sun accompanied by a Max Steiner score that gives some life to the proceedings, as a small group of British cavalry gets lost on the hot desert sands and takes refuge in an oasis.VICTOR McLAGLEN is head of the patrol and he's his usual blustery self and BORIS KARLOFF is a Bible quoting soldier devoid of his usual horror make-up.
DOUGLAS WALTON is sensitive as the nineteen year-old soldier comforted by McLaglen when overcome by fear and fatigue.Once the lost patrol reaches the oasis, it becomes clear that there's a stagey quality to the dialog in an attempt at character development, but McLaglen remains genuinely convincing as the tough but tender-hearted man who has to keep his men alert in the face of Arab snipers.The action is slow, but Steiner's music has a mixture of exotic flavors mixed with the feeling of wind, sand and military themes.
Karloff, with a mad stare in his eyes, eventually goes out of his mind and has an unusual final scene.The story ends with McLaglen the last man standing by the time the cavalry arrives and everyone marches off into the desert dunes while Steiner's music reaches a pitch of military flavor.Not bad, but not the best of John Ford either.
the lost patrol showed up on tv the other day,and being a movie buff I was surprised i had never seen it.the film seemed a bit stilted and john ford should have told boris karloff to can the silent movie histrionics,but it was good for it's time,and remade probably a hundred times.i'm glad i saw it..
The three remaining soldiers are:  Morelli (Wallace Ford), the sergeant(McLaglen) and Sanders(Boris  Karloff), a religious nut!
About the only character who came off really well in the film was Victor McLaglen as the sergeant in charge of the lost group of British soldiers.
There's also a very "horror-like" scene where they are almost rescued by a man in an airplane who is killed by the Arabs, a device that reminded me of "almost" rescue attempts in horror films such as "The Shining".Speaking of horror, how bout that Boris Karloff?
There were times when his performance was good, in a silent movie kind of way.
Having seen Victor McLaglen in any number of support roles, particularly in John Ford's later Westerns with John Wayne, it was cool to see him here leading a group of lost men in the Mesopotamian Desert during World War I.
What follows is the harrowing ordeal of the men in the Sarge's company summarily picked off by enemy fire or succumbing to madness resulting from fear, heat exhaustion and an unknown fate.Other reviewers for the film here on IMDb find Boris Karloff's performance to be rather over the top and maniacal, however I thought he built on the persona of a religious zealot over the course of the story until he could no longer maintain his grip on reality.
The commanding officer is killed by a sniper's bullet taking with him the orders under which the patrol is to proceed.The sergeant (Victor McLaglen) is left in charge with no idea of what their mission was supposed to be.
They are now marooned in the middle of nowhere with no hope of escape.Snipers begin picking off members of the patrol one by one until.........Victor McLaglen long a John Ford regular, stands out as the sergeant who tries to keep his men under control and hopeful of an eventual rescue.
***SPOILERS*** Cut off in the fighting against the Turks a British patrol is lost in the vast Mesopotamian Desert trying to find it's way back to it's brigade.
The religious fanatic starts to think that he's in some way on a mission from God to not only save his lost patrol but what seemed like the whole world from the horrors of war.
John Ford was to become a great director so he was just learning his trade at the time this was made but he lost his way on this one !!
In brief, a British patrol of some half dozen men are lost in the Arabian desert in World War I.
One by one, they're picked off by unseen enemy snipers until only Victor McLaglen, the top sergeant, is left.In these movies, there are always a couple of adumbrations of tragedy.