The Lost Patrol

The Lost Patrol (1934)

Blistering sun... blazing bullets!

A World War I British Army patrol is crossing the Mesopotamian desert when their commanding officer, the only one who knows their destination, is killed by the bullet of unseen bandits. The patrol's sergeant keeps them heading north on the assumption that they will hit their brigade. They stop for the night at an oasis and awaken the next morning to find their horses stolen, their sentry dead, the oasis surrounded and survival difficult.

Date of release
1934-02-16
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (84)
Runtime
1h 13m
Genres
Action, War
Director
John Ford

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $254K
  • Filmed in: Yuma Desert
  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 1. Including: National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

The Lost Patrol is a 1934 American pre-Code war film by RKO, directed and produced by John Ford, with Merian C. Cooper as executive producer and Cliff Reid as associate producer from a screenplay by Dudley Nichols from the 1927 novel Patrol by Philip MacDonald. Max Steiner provided the Oscar-nominated score. The film, a remake of a 1929 British silent film, starred Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, J. M. Kerrigan and Alan Hale.

Production and casting

The film was directed by John Ford, who also directed The World Moves On and Judge Priest in 1934. The script was written by Dudley Nichols and Garrett Fort, based on the 1927 war novel Patrol, by Philip MacDonald. The novel was first adapted in 1929, by Walter Summers, who directed and wrote the film with Victor McLaglen’s younger brother Cyril in the lead role.

Richard Dix was cast to play the lead role in The Lost Patrol but he went into another film instead and Victor McLaglen replaced him. McLaglen himself was a World War I veteran, having served as a captain (acting) with the 10th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment. Later he claimed to have served with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He served for a time as military assistant provost marshal for the city of Baghdad.

Already an actor in 1909, Boris Karloff attempted to enlist in the British Army during World War I, but was rejected due to his heart murmur.

Wallace Ford and Reginald Denny, who played Morelli and Brown, had both served in World War I. Ford served in the United States cavalry, while Denny served as an observer/gunner in the Royal Flying Corps. Denny would eventually found a company that made radio-controlled target aircraft during World War II.

The Lost Patrol was filmed in Algodones Dunes, California, and Yuma, Arizona. Filming began on August 31 and ended on September 22, 1933. In Algodones Dunes, the temperatures soared and one of the film's producers wound up in the hospital with sunstroke. According to Karloff's biographer Peter Underwood, the temperature on the Yuma locations could be as hot as 150 °F (66 °C) and actors were limited to working two hours a day.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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