planktonrules Review of The Lost Patrol

The Lost Patrol (1934)

Pretty good, but occasionally the characters acted a bit too "batty" to be realistic

[5/10 · 23 November 2006]

This is a movie that must have played a lot better back in 1934 than it would now. To many it's considered a classic, but I just felt that one stupendously clichéd performance and often irrational behaviors from many of the men helped to sink this drama to the level of "good but not especially memorable". About the only character who came off really well in the film was Victor McLaglen as the sergeant in charge of the lost group of British soldiers. The rest either were often just very irrational--mindlessly running across the dunes to either save someone when they are ordered NOT to or just to die because their character was being written out of the film. Many times, soldiers stood up during fire fights or did really dumb things for no apparent reason. One memorable example is the pilot who lands the plane without surveying the area--only to be shot as soon as he gets out of the plane! Had the British army REALLY been that stupid, there never would have been a British Empire!! An even bigger problem was Boris Karloff's character. Robert Osborne from TCM said that he was a character that movie goers "either loved or hated". I apparently was among those who hated him. He played a total maniac religious freak who is almost 100% insane. Don't you think the army would have somehow figured out he was nuts and given him his discharge papers long before this mission?! His wild-eyed expression and bizarre behavior are very reminiscent of the Jonathan Brewster character he played on Broadway in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE--not a soldier in what was at the time the finest army in the world!! If you edited out the stupid and irrational deaths and all of Karloff's performance, you are left with a pretty good film with an interesting premise--but that's a lot of film to remove and the remaining bits wouldn't make up an entire film. Overall, the movie isn't bad, just not all that good. A true time-passer and that is all.