The Brigand of Kandahar
It’s hard to imagine who this DVD release of The Brigand of Kandahar will appeal to. People who remember it fondly from when it first came out in 1965? If there’s anyone out there that applies to, congratulations. You’re the target market. Otherwise, even Oliver Reed completists will struggle to see the value in this horribly dated, racially offensive and narratively malnourished period piece from the Hammer vaults.Ostensibly this is the tale of Lieutenant Case (Ronald Lewis), a mixed-race British officer serving in what is now Pakistan during the early days of the British Raj. After being dismissed for abandoning a fellow officer – an officer Case was cuckolding, at that – to his fate at the hands of a local resistance force, Case launches a personal vendetta against his former colonel and runs off with the “slightly mad” but much feared “Brigand of Kandahar” (Reed).
In reality, of course, this is the story of what happens when a well-intentioned story about the brutal process of colonisation and the evils of racism spectacularly misses its mark by using white actors in blackface raving in what is either poorly pronounced Pashto or, more likely, gibberish. Because I’m feeling churlish, I will also deduct marks for Ratina’s boobtacular and therefore historically inaccurate costuming.
As Ali Khan, the titular brigand, Reed has a high old time chewing on the cardboard scenery and cackling a lot. Although the pantomime camp of Reed’s performance cannot conceal that he’s wearing nugget on his face and white satin breeches on his legs, it is nevertheless very disappointing when Khan is killed off during a sabre duel with Case. Reed really looks like he’s fighting for his life – all flashing eyes, straining sinews and bared teeth. Lewis, on the other hand, looks like he’s struggling with a tricky bit of topiary.
The film’s many failings may not be so glaring had anyone bothered to invest time in developing something approaching a proper plot or meaningful characterisation. Instead, Brigand makes the most of its meagre budget by hurrying from short snatches of clunky expository dialogue to full-blown action. The battle scenes are impressive enough displays of thundering cavalry, and although some horses were sure as shit injured for the sake of realism, it wasn’t during the making of this film. Brigand’s battle scenes were culled from Zarak, a similarly-themed flick made by Warwick Films almost ten years earlier.
Jolly poor show all round.
The Scarlet Blade
Although not quite as execrable as The Brigand of Kandahar, The Scarlet Blade is another DVD re-release from the Hammer archives that is unlikely to make anyone sigh with regret that “they don’t make films like this anymore”.Originally released in 1964 as The Crimson Blade, the new title probably reflects the fact that the time for caring whether or not audiences notice that this is a cheap knock-off of The Scarlet Pimpernel has long since passed.
Set during the Commonwealth period, the film opens in 1649 with the arrest of Charles I. The mysterious “Scarlet Blade” is busy moving Royalist refugees to safety while Captain Judd ineptly tries to stop him. This setting at least allows Hammer to wheel out some classic Hammer-isms: dank dungeons, brocade-draped halls, and tightly laced bodices. However, it really doesn’t make the most of this last – June Thorburn, as Judd’s Royalist daughter, gets just one opportunity to show off her beautifully bolstered bosom.
Oliver Reed’s magisterial Sylvester is as enticing and as dangerous as a tiger, and he’s the best thing about this badly dated, historically dodgy curio. Amazingly, despite the setting and time-period, Hammer manage to work in a racially offensive stereotype anyway – “Pablo the Gypsy”; with his scarves, billowy shirt, pendants, gold earring and luscious hair, he looks more like a roadie for Hawkwind in blackface than a seventeenth century peon.
This flick is fine for whiling away a dreary Sunday afternoon if you happen to stumble across it on TV (the acting is not nearly as wooden as the prefabricated sets would imply), but there’s no reason to actively search it out.
These reviews were originally published on FilmWerk
