North West Frontier (film)


North West Frontier is a 1959 British Eastmancolor adventure film starring Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White and I. S. Johar. The CinemaScope film was produced by Marcel Hellman and directed by J. Lee Thompson. It was a commercial success at the British box-office in 1959. The film's success led to J. Lee Thompson beginning his American career as a director.
The film is set in the North West Frontier Province of British Raj. It explores the ethnic tensions within British India after Muslim rebels attack a fortress and kill a Hindu maharajah.

Plot

In 1905 on the North West Frontier of British India, a maharajah asks British Army Captain Scott to take his young son, Prince Kishan, to Haserabad and then send him to Delhi to protect him from an uprising. Accompanying them is the prince's governess, an American widow named Mrs. Wyatt. They leave as the rebels storm the palace and kill the prince's father. This makes his five year old son the leader of the Hindu population in the region.
On arrival at Haserabad, Captain Scott sees that many local Hindus and Europeans are leaving on the last train to Kalapur. The Muslim rebels soon close in and take control of the outer wall and gate beside the railway yard. The British governor tells Scott that he must take the young prince to Kalapur for his safety. In the railyard, the British captain discovers the "Empress of India", an old railway engine cared for by its driver Gupta. They calculate that it will manage the journey if limited to pulling a single carriage.
Early the next morning, Captain Scott quietly loads the passengers onto the old train. They include Mrs. Wyatt, Prince Kishan, arms dealer Mr. Peters, British expatriate Mr. Bridie, Lady Windham, two British Indian Army NCOs, and Dutch journalist Mr. Peter van Leyden. The Empress quietly freewheels down a gradient and out of the yard, but when her whistle is accidentally sounded, Gupta fires the engine and crashes her through the outer gate. The enemy fire on them and chase them but cannot keep up with the train.
Later that morning, the train encounters an abandoned train at a remote station. This is the refugee train which preceded them out of Haserabad. Everyone on board has been massacred. Despite being told not to by Captain Scott, Mrs. Wyatt leaves the Empress and finds one survivor, a baby concealed by his mother's body.
The next morning, the train must stop because a portion of the track has been blown up. Mrs. Wyatt spots the signaling flashes of a heliograph atop a mountain summit, and everyone quickly realises that the Muslim rebels are sitting in ambush in the surrounding hills. With track repairs barely finished by Captain Scott, the train gets away under a hail of gunfire. Gupta is wounded but survives.
Later that day, while stopping to refill the engine's water tank, Scott walks into the pump house to find Van Leyden allowing Prince Kishan to stand dangerously close to the pump's rapidly spinning flywheel. In the evening Van Leyden refuses alcohol and the group correctly deduce he is Muslim. He explains this by saying he is half Indonesian. During the night, Mr. Van Leyden again approaches the prince, only to notice Lady Windham watching him.
The train reaches a bomb-damaged bridge. There is nothing under one section of rail except the ground far below. Scott has the others carefully cross that section one by one to lighten the train that will follow them. Finally, only Van Leyden and the prince remain behind. Van Leyden seems to deliberately hold the boy back and endanger his life. He falls and Scott grabs his hand, pulling him back to safety. Afterward, Scott accuses Van Leyden of trying to kill the prince, and he places the reporter under arrest. After that, Captain Scott, under Gupta's guidance, carefully maneuvers the train across.
Later, while going through a tunnel, Van Leyden uses the opportunity to overpower his guard. He uses a Maxim machine gun to threaten the passengers and now declares his loyalty to the Muslim cause. He is unable to kill Prince Kishnan because the boy is with Captain Scott in the locomotive's cab. Scott returns to the carriage with the young prince after spotting more rebel heliograph signals, but they are saved when the machine gun is knocked off balance by a kick from Mr. Bridie. Scott crawls up the carriage and starts to fight him. The two men end on the roof. At the climax of the fight a shot rings out: Mrs. Wyatt has shot Van Leyden with one of the rifles. He falls off and dies as the Muslim rebels ride up on horses.
The Muslim rebels chase the train on horseback but are thwarted when the Empress enters a two-mile-long hillside tunnel. On the other side, the train reaches the safety of Kalapur to strains of The Eton Boating Song. At the station, young Prince Kishan is met by his Hindu entourage, while Gupta is taken to hospital, and Lady Windham is informed that her husband, the governor, is safe. On learning Prince Kishan may yet fight the British, as his father instructed him, Scott quotes Kipling before he and Mrs. Wyatt leave together.

Cast

Casting

In 1957, More announced he would play "a romantic adventure" part set during the Indian Mutiny, Night Runners of Bengal. This film was never made and it is likely instead More was transferred to a similar project, North West Frontier. Olivia de Havilland was originally announced as the female lead.

Filming

Location scenes filming in India took place at the Amber Fort, in Rajasthan. Some of the rail sequences were shot in southern Spain in the province of Granada. The area's dry arid steppe was used to portray British India. Parts of the railway, which is now abandoned, traversed the northern part of the Sierra Nevada between Guadix and Baza. The bomb-damaged rail bridge that the train must cross is over the Carretera de Belerda. The ending used Iznalloz railway station near Barrio Primero De Mayo.
An article by Ray Ellis, entitled Railway Films of the Raj, published in the Indian Railway Study Group Newsletter No.9 in January 1993, states:

Release

The film was a major hit in the UK, being among the six most popular films in Great Britain for the year ended 31 October 1959.
The film was one of seven made by Rank which were bought for distribution in the US by 20th Century Fox. Lauren Bacall called it a "good little movie... with a stupid title".

Awards nominations