CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

michaelb-21 Very nice looking movie; the restored DVD from VCI fixed up a lot of grain on other DVD releases. Good use of an actual old locomotive; and the Spanish locations do a good job of looking like India. One nice point (a mild spoiler): the two Indian soldiers on the train survive the film, and are useful during the entire journey. Go Team Redshirt! The child actor is much more agreeable than most.

tieman64 "One day in front of the Municipal Office I saw a little girl trying to drink her mother's milk. But the girl did not realise that the mother was dead." - Bhovani Shen Directed by J. Lee Thompson, and filled with astonishing widescreen photography, "North West Frontier" spends its first ninety minutes conning you into thinking you're watching a great film about the British Empire's bloody misadventures in India.The plot? Kenneth More plays Captain Scott, a dashing British Army officer tasked with protecting Prince Kishan, the young son of an Indian King. In this regard, Scott escorts Kishan out of a besieged fortress and into a rickety old steam train. In this train, Scott hopes to evade the Prince's attackers, a band of Muslims who are part of a nationwide uprising. Also on the train are a doctor's wife who "detests soldiers" (Lauren Bacall), an anti-colonialist journalist (Herbert Lom), an opinionated arms dealer, a chauvinistic aristocrat and various other British ex-pats. In other words, the train is populated by a cross-section of figures who offer interesting and conflicting perspectives on late 19th century Imperialism.One must remember that the 1950s, 60s and 70s saw the British Empire begin granting independence to its colonies. As these social reconfigurements took place, Great Britain felt the need to rehabilitate its past and rationalise the "good old days" of Empire-building. These outbursts of patriotism (and "revisionism") also served the more important task of helping to distract from the erection of new forms of exploitation and/or control. The year of "North West Frontier's" release, for example, British Colonialism was still killing hundreds of thousands in Kenya. British rule of India, whether it be directly during the years of the Raj, or during the years of the East India Company, was likewise responsible for countless deaths (almost two billion over an almost 2 century period). Divide-and-conquer tactics were used, local kings and rebels were armed against one another, taxes were used to cripple locals, land was taken from Indians, India itself was turned into a giant factory for export, nourishing crops were destroyed in favour for producing textiles and opium for foreign markets, designed famines were rife, uprisings were violently crushed and so forth. In addition to this, the usual racist attitudes were prevalent, Indians uniformly viewed as subhuman. Winston Churchill, for example, would bluntly state "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion" and Lord Hastings would describe Indians as "mere animals", "limited", "with no higher intellect than a dog or monkey".Though "North West Frontier's" premise initially allows for a nuanced view of the Britsh Raj, it finally degenerates into Empire Denial. The Muslim rebels are ultimately evil and horde-like (how dare they kill cute kids!), the Hindu Kings are "thankless" fools who betray a Britain which gallantly risked life and limb to both protect the people and maintain "local order", and pacifist women (Bacall) learn to "appreciate soldiers". The train in the film is itself nicknamed "Victoria", the late 19th century queen who oversaw most of the Raj's worst excesses. In the film, Victoria does the opposite, providing stability, safe-haven and protection to her disparate passengers.Interestingly, "North West Frontier" was co-written by Patrick Ford, son of John Ford. The film itself plays like a John Ford picture, with dusty heroes, stagecoaches under attack, marauding hordes of faceless Indians and a landscape dotted with cavalry charges and military outposts. Though the film ultimately ends on a reactionary note (Captain Scott is never anything less than a hero), its first three acts are somewhat complex for an adventure film, and director J. Lee Thompson's direction is impeccable, with compositions reminiscent of David Lean, excellent location shooting and several fine set-pieces.7.5/10 – See Pontecorvo's "Burn", "Guns at Batasi" and "Decision Before Dawn". Read J. G. Farrell's excellent "The Siege of Krishnapur".

ma-cortes 1905 India , riots try to overthrow the Maharaja from Norhwest frontier on a rebel-held county . The film portrays a British group on a stronghold being besieged by Indian rebel tribes, banded together against the Brits and they're led by Muslim leaders. The English people are surrounded by Moslems army which spent time in the siege . The governor( Ian Hunter) assigns captain Scott (one of Kenneth More's best) as responsible of protection the young prince , undertaking a dangerous escape . Scott has to save the Maharaja's son , attempting to get the heir to safety and getaway by commandeering a steam train . Along the way they encounter bandits , attackers , treason and sabotage . The Brits contra-attack displaying on the train a machine-gun , making a brutal slaughter . Scott takes the action by aiding the passengers (Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom, Ursula Jeans ,Deckers, Wilfred Hyde White) throughout four hundred miles of risked travel .This is a British attempt to match the US adventure's spectacles of the mid-sixties, containing derring-do, romance , old-fashioned action set mostly aboard a train, spectacular battles, gorgeous outdoors and resulting to be quite entertaining . It's a fiery early 20th-century adventure yarn with political connotations that some moments makes little sense but bulges with emotion that keeps coming at you, as action and adventures is maintained throughout . It's one of several adventures-action pictures made in Britain in the sixties that starred such Hollywood stars as Lauren Bacall and previously in the fifties as Victor Mature and Robert Taylor. There are strong performances from Herbert Lom as suspicious journalist and Wilfred Hyde White as feisty old man , who have made few bad films . Lauren Bacall as understanding governess, plays with some of sensitivity , and still successfully acting . Personable interpretation by I.S. Johar who steals the show as likable driver. Latterly, as very secondaries appear Ian Hunter , Alan Cuthbertson and Jack Gwillin, among others . But the main protagonist is the old machine called Empress of India Victoria . Luminous cinematography in rich Eastmancolor by Oscar-winning Geoffrey Unsworth, though with abuse of transparency . The movie was glamorously shot in Guadix , Granada , Andalucia , Spain and interior filmed in Pinewood studios. Emotive and atmospheric musical score by Spoliansky and conducted by the habitual Muir Matheson.The motion picture is well and blazingly directed by J. Lee Thompson, he's a skill and successfully craftsman . He has directed numerous films ,British comedies, drama , suspense but his most successful films are the fresh and diverting adventures . Lee Thompson directed good Western ( McKenna gold , White Buffalo) and all king of genres as Sci-Fi (Conquest and Battle of planet of apes), terror (reincarnation of Peter Proud, Eye of the devil), adventures (King of the sun, Taras Bulba, and Northwest frontier also titled Fire over India) and Warlike ( Guns of Navarone, Von Braun). J. Lee Thomson working from the 50s in England, finished his career making Chuck Norris (Firewalker) and Charles Bronson vehicles (Evil that men do, Messenger of death, Death Wish 4 : Crackdown, Caboblanco, St Ives) and a string of TV movies until his demise at 2002 . Watchable results for this good adventure movie .

Robert J. Maxwell I think I enjoyed this a bit more when I saw it years ago. Now that I'm so terribly sophisticated, I notice the clichés leaping out at me, fangs bared. Will the train make it, slowly creeping along the rickety bridge? Will the bus ("The Wayward Bus")? Will the car ("Murder by Death")? Will the explosive-laden truck ("Sorcerer II," "The Wages of Fear")? But, what the heck. This is a headlong adventure through the deserts and mountains of North West India in 1905. Everything shouts at you and ends in an exclamation point. The acting is outrageous. Even the fastidious Wilfred Hyde-White is outrageously fastidious. The principal heavy, Herbert Lom, sweats like a pig, an animal that he, as a Muslim, hates.There is an attempt on the part of the writers to inject some serious matters into the story. A boy of five is the surviving Prince of India, presumably a Hindu, while the villains are a radical Muslim sect. "Not all Muslims" support the bloody rebellion, as one character remarks. And the British colonials talk about how their presence is needed to "keep order" while all about them thousands of Indians are slaughtering each other. At the end, the young Prince gives a present to the hero, Kenneth More, but comment ruefully that someday he will have to fight the Brits. Largely because of Ghandi, the Brits, of course, eventually did leave India to its own devices. At the time, it didn't lead to an improvement since the Hindus and Moslems immediately went to war and finally split into two or three independent nations.This hardly matters to the colorful story of a handful of disparate men, women, and children trying to survive a three-hundred mile journey through a hostile land on a dilapidated train with one coal car and one coach. It's a generic "journey" movie that we've all seen before -- in "Stagecoach" and elsewhere, but it's a lot of fun. I love those old narrow-gauge Indian trains with their diminutive piping whistles.Do they get to the end of their journey successfully and (mostly) in one piece? Two old puff-puffs pulling my extremities in opposite directions couldn't get me to spill the beans.