North West Frontier

North West Frontier (1959)

Two people trapped by fate. In a country with no destiny.

In the rebellious northern frontier province of colonial India, British Army Captain Scott, a young prince and the boy's governess escape by an obsolete train as they are relentlessly pursued by Muslim rebels intent on assassinating the prince.

Date of release
1959-10-13
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (58)
Runtime
2h 9m
Genres
Adventure, Drama
Director
J. Lee Thompson

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Spain, Pinewood Studios, Puente del Anchurón and 1 more

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.

Production

The film was one of a number of larger budgeted adventure films Rank were making in the late 1950s.

In 1957, More announced he would play "a romantic adventure" partly set during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Nightrunners of Bengal. That film was never made and it is likely that More was transferred instead to North West Frontier, a similar project. Olivia de Havilland was originally announced as the female lead. Lauren Bacall's casting was announced in January 1959.

The production started in Rajasthan, India in April 1959. More recalled in his memoirs that it was a physically difficult shoot with many of the cast and crew falling ill with dysentery and other illnesses. The unit stayed at a former Maharajah's palace which had been turned into a hotel. Several Rajasthan landmarks were used as filming locations.

After filming was completed in Rajasthan, the remaining rail sequences were filmed in the province of Granada, Spain where the area's geography matched the dry arid steppe of Northern India. Production started on 10 May 1959 and took five weeks to complete.. It used sections of railway (much has now been abandoned) which traversed the northern part of the Sierra Nevada between Guadix and Baza.

By July 1959, the production had moved to Pinewood Studios in England to complete interior scenes inside the Maharajah's palace, ambassador's residence and the rail carriage. A full-size set was built for the close-up work of the train and carriage crossing the gap on the bomb-damaged railway viaduct.

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

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