Richard Egan brings charisma galore as a British officer in India to director Seymour Friedman's rough and tough but routine adventure epic "Khyber Patrol" with Raymond Burr as his treacherous adversary. Basically. this is just another cavalry western that suffers from a low budget and a 71-minute running time. The uniforms are as splendid as the casting. Patric Knowles, Paul Cavanagh, Philip Tonge, and Patrick O'Moore are all spit, polish, and British to the core. "Chinatown at Midnight" helmer Friedman and scenarist Jack DeWitt and Richard Schayer generate just enough suspense among the true Britons and Canadian born Capt. Kyle Cameron to keep us guessing how long the natives will tolerate this insubordinate Canuck. Cameron and fellow officer Lieutenant George Kennedy (Patric Knowles) are competing for the affections of Colonel Rivington's daughter Diana (Dawn Addams) when our stalwart hero gives Kennedy orders that plunge him into an ambush. Cameron and company are struggling to defeat the border tribesmen who are crack shots with rifles. When the British are set to import Maxim machine guns to even the odds, the villains need somebody to show their men how to operate those weapons. Cameron pulls a sort of "Four Feathers" change of allegiances to fool the tribesman and a shrewd Russian officer, Capt. Ahmed Shir (Raymond Burr of "Perry Mason"), before they can raid a British convoy of wagons carrying the machine gun. Naturally, "Khyber Patrol" never wears out its welcome.
7 Reviews
"You westerners, always considerate of women"
hwg1957-102-26570419 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
There is military trouble afoot at the Khyber Pass and it is up to Capt. Kyle Cameron of the British Lancers to sort it out which he does with a ready fist and a steady gun in this typical 1950's adventure film. It is colourful and with a reasonably entertaining cast of characters but tends to flag now and then, needing a bit more blood and thunder. My favourite character was the engaging Raymond Burr as the perfidious Capt. Ahmed Shir.
Khyber Patrol
CinemaSerf21 November 2022
I love all these boy's own type action adventures. This one sees Richard Egan ("Cameron") trying to convince friend and foe alike of his worthiness whilst serving with the Lancers guarding the Khyber Pass. He is a Canadian officer who has a few issues with discipline. Whilst that doesn't go down at all well with his colleagues it does give him an opportunity to convince the duplicitous "Capt. Shir" (Raymond Burr) that he could work with him as a double agent for the scheming prince "Ishak Khan" (Donald Randolph) who plans to rid the province of their colonial occupiers. It's colourful and once it gets started, moves along quite well as he plays the game for all it's worth. A few other recognisable faces - Patric Knowles and Paul Cavanagh pop up too, with Dawn Addams ("Diana") providing the mercifully brief romantic interludes. The acting is adequate but the production is pretty basic and the ending is all just a bit too rushed, as if they had run out of filming days. It's still watchable though, if you like the genre.
A fair adventure actioner
searchanddestroy-19 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
It looks like a Sam Katzman production, but it is not...
A cheap movie, as you have already understood. No actual locations for the shooting, silly situations, I would say unbelievable, but the whole is acceptable. You can watch it and take pleasure in the same time. Of course, it's not KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES. It remains a good B picture. It takes place in Afghanistan - yes, ALREADY - not far from Peshawar, and the story tells us a struggle between British army and local tribes who want help from the EVIL Russia...The country just besides.
Action sequences are useful to keep you awake, including some fists fights in officers' clubs, and you can't avoid the romance between Egan and Adams. And I almost forgot, Raymond Burr is the heavy of the movie.
A rare gem, anyway.
A cheap movie, as you have already understood. No actual locations for the shooting, silly situations, I would say unbelievable, but the whole is acceptable. You can watch it and take pleasure in the same time. Of course, it's not KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES. It remains a good B picture. It takes place in Afghanistan - yes, ALREADY - not far from Peshawar, and the story tells us a struggle between British army and local tribes who want help from the EVIL Russia...The country just besides.
Action sequences are useful to keep you awake, including some fists fights in officers' clubs, and you can't avoid the romance between Egan and Adams. And I almost forgot, Raymond Burr is the heavy of the movie.
A rare gem, anyway.
Still dealing with Indians
bkoganbing2 March 2013
Substitute the Mexican border for the India-Afghani one and you've got the plot of several westerns I could think of. Of course we're still dealing with Indians.
Khyber Patrol is an eastern western with Richard Egan from Canada to explain his lack of British accent and he's joined their cavalry, the Indian army of the 1890s. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars the great eastern question is to keep the Russians from infiltrating India through the Khyber Pass and kicking the British out. But we must not cross into Afghanistan and pursue the rebels into their sanctuary there.
Richard Egan is inpatient with that policy and his impatience doesn't win him too many friends. And he's got romantic problems as well as both he and Patric Knowles are courting the colonel's daughter Dawn Addams. I think you can see where this one is going.
Even in a setting before the Russian Revolution it was fashionable in the Fifties to make Russians the villains. Raymond Burr and Donald Randolph make a fine pair of Afghani villains secretly in league with the Russians to bring their brand of imperialism to their country as opposed to British.
Some things never do change.
Khyber Patrol is an eastern western with Richard Egan from Canada to explain his lack of British accent and he's joined their cavalry, the Indian army of the 1890s. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars the great eastern question is to keep the Russians from infiltrating India through the Khyber Pass and kicking the British out. But we must not cross into Afghanistan and pursue the rebels into their sanctuary there.
Richard Egan is inpatient with that policy and his impatience doesn't win him too many friends. And he's got romantic problems as well as both he and Patric Knowles are courting the colonel's daughter Dawn Addams. I think you can see where this one is going.
Even in a setting before the Russian Revolution it was fashionable in the Fifties to make Russians the villains. Raymond Burr and Donald Randolph make a fine pair of Afghani villains secretly in league with the Russians to bring their brand of imperialism to their country as opposed to British.
Some things never do change.
B Movie Propaganda Theme Dull
Jakealope23 September 2014
While making a movie that has the Soviets as the bad guys, this time subbing in Imperial Russians since it was set in the 1800s, is not bad in itself. The Communists were as awful as their worst critics said they were. But propaganda themed flicks tend to suck in general, even if the foe was a worthy one.
Robert Egan really irritated me. His permanent sneer was a real turn off. He played the typical brash American masquerading as the brash Canadian colonial officer in the stuffy British army. His foolish behavior was supposed to be endearing but it was so poorly done that it reminded me of the archetype 50s rebellious teenager more than an army officer.
The action scenes were simply cowboy and Indians subbed in with lancers and Afghan guerrillas exchanging lever action for bolt action rifles. The outdoor sets looked like the same ones they used in many westerns. It was a tired flick that lacked any charisma or hook. I saw it on Netflix and it took four sessions to get it all in.
It wasn't all terrible. It had a part where he got "disgraced" in order to go "rebel" and deceive the native officer he thought was a friend, Raymond Burr as an Indian Muslim and infiltrate their underground. The conclusion could be figured out from a scene in the middle where a "new" weapon was shown to the Brit officers.
It wasn't horrid but don't go out of your way to watch it
Robert Egan really irritated me. His permanent sneer was a real turn off. He played the typical brash American masquerading as the brash Canadian colonial officer in the stuffy British army. His foolish behavior was supposed to be endearing but it was so poorly done that it reminded me of the archetype 50s rebellious teenager more than an army officer.
The action scenes were simply cowboy and Indians subbed in with lancers and Afghan guerrillas exchanging lever action for bolt action rifles. The outdoor sets looked like the same ones they used in many westerns. It was a tired flick that lacked any charisma or hook. I saw it on Netflix and it took four sessions to get it all in.
It wasn't all terrible. It had a part where he got "disgraced" in order to go "rebel" and deceive the native officer he thought was a friend, Raymond Burr as an Indian Muslim and infiltrate their underground. The conclusion could be figured out from a scene in the middle where a "new" weapon was shown to the Brit officers.
It wasn't horrid but don't go out of your way to watch it
Instead of leading his troops, David had stayed behind and sent them off to battle.
ulicknormanowen26 February 2022
Here captain Kyle is blamed for the death of a lieutenant in love with Diana ,a girl of his fancy and several good men ; anyway the love affair is totally devoid of interest, Dawn Adams has only a few scenes and only serves,as the bad guy says ,as an "insurance "
Looking sometimes like a poor man's "lives of a Bengal Lancer" : like Hathaway's classic ,it deals with cowardice, treason and redemption ;but whereas the 1935 classic made up for the glorification of English colonialism with his legendary acting (Gary Cooper ,Franchot Tone) ,its wry humor (Tone's boots and flute) and his absorbing action-packed screenplay "khyber patrol " is listless , although Raymond Burr saves something from the wreckage as Egan's "big brother" ;the latter is ill at ease, his forte is the social drama such as "voice in the mirror" or " a summer place",the thriller ("violent Saturday" ) and the "family movie" (the good doctor of "Pollyanna" of course)
Looking sometimes like a poor man's "lives of a Bengal Lancer" : like Hathaway's classic ,it deals with cowardice, treason and redemption ;but whereas the 1935 classic made up for the glorification of English colonialism with his legendary acting (Gary Cooper ,Franchot Tone) ,its wry humor (Tone's boots and flute) and his absorbing action-packed screenplay "khyber patrol " is listless , although Raymond Burr saves something from the wreckage as Egan's "big brother" ;the latter is ill at ease, his forte is the social drama such as "voice in the mirror" or " a summer place",the thriller ("violent Saturday" ) and the "family movie" (the good doctor of "Pollyanna" of course)
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