The idea for a story about boyhood friends who find themselves on opposite sides of the Indian Mutiny is a promising one; make one of them a half-caste officer on whom the commandant's wilful daughter has set her sudden fancy, much to the agonies of her father's would-be liberal conscience, and you ought to have a powerful picture.
Sadly, "King of the Khyber Rifles" isn't that film.
The potentially interesting theme of the conflicts of loyalty between the warlord Karram Khan, his father who has turned to pacifism, and his foster-brother Charles King is barely touched upon, and then only in a cursory manner as a plot mechanism. When, returning to camp, Captain King is arrested under suspicion of being in league with the rebels, an accusation circumstances have conspired to render all too probable... the whole careful set-up is disregarded the moment said rebels actually attack. In fact, King is instantly released and entrusted with leading an undercover attack against these same rebels!
The film is much more interested in its racially-conscious romantic subplot than in any conflicts of loyalty, but the romance unfortunately falls pretty flat for me. As mentioned by other reviewers, Terry Moore -- so charming opposite an SFX gorilla in "Mighty Joe Young" -- here plays the role of Susan as a Valley Girl airhead with anachronistic attitudes, while I found it hard to see why she instantly hurls herself at the head of Tyrone Power, who appears to participate in the entire film with polite but wooden reluctance. There is so little screen chemistry on view between them that when she comes bursting into King's bedroom at night to confess her passion -- an act, for a lady of 1857, that would have compromised her honour as effectively as actually sleeping with him -- I rather expected the embarrassed Captain to repulse her gently on the grounds that he simply did not return her feelings.
Nor do the racial politics seem particularly well thought-out. British India, even the Northwest Frontier, was not the American Deep South, where the higher the admixture of white blood the better; the 'chi-chi' was looked down upon by the Indian as by the Englishman, a fact correctly acknowledged in the film by King's mother's ostracism, but not in the plot assumption that his own half-blood status gives him an edge with "them". And the argument he uses on his rebellious men, that if he can honourably bite the cartridges so can they, makes little sense unless he also shares their religion and hence the taboo -- which, to all appearances, he does not.
But all this could be ignored; my real problem with this film was that it failed to engage or excite me, save for that one justly famous moment when the captured soldiers are dispatched one by one, transfixed by the horsemen's spears. Watching approaching death, Tyrone Power's face conveys emotion at last -- but the moment passes, and film and star alike go through the motions until the end.
Given its material, this could have been a great picture. As it turns out, it's just another genre entry, and a somewhat cursory one at that. The star's heart doesn't seem to be in it, and neither script nor action hold any great sparkle to compensate.
Sadly, "King of the Khyber Rifles" isn't that film.
The potentially interesting theme of the conflicts of loyalty between the warlord Karram Khan, his father who has turned to pacifism, and his foster-brother Charles King is barely touched upon, and then only in a cursory manner as a plot mechanism. When, returning to camp, Captain King is arrested under suspicion of being in league with the rebels, an accusation circumstances have conspired to render all too probable... the whole careful set-up is disregarded the moment said rebels actually attack. In fact, King is instantly released and entrusted with leading an undercover attack against these same rebels!
The film is much more interested in its racially-conscious romantic subplot than in any conflicts of loyalty, but the romance unfortunately falls pretty flat for me. As mentioned by other reviewers, Terry Moore -- so charming opposite an SFX gorilla in "Mighty Joe Young" -- here plays the role of Susan as a Valley Girl airhead with anachronistic attitudes, while I found it hard to see why she instantly hurls herself at the head of Tyrone Power, who appears to participate in the entire film with polite but wooden reluctance. There is so little screen chemistry on view between them that when she comes bursting into King's bedroom at night to confess her passion -- an act, for a lady of 1857, that would have compromised her honour as effectively as actually sleeping with him -- I rather expected the embarrassed Captain to repulse her gently on the grounds that he simply did not return her feelings.
Nor do the racial politics seem particularly well thought-out. British India, even the Northwest Frontier, was not the American Deep South, where the higher the admixture of white blood the better; the 'chi-chi' was looked down upon by the Indian as by the Englishman, a fact correctly acknowledged in the film by King's mother's ostracism, but not in the plot assumption that his own half-blood status gives him an edge with "them". And the argument he uses on his rebellious men, that if he can honourably bite the cartridges so can they, makes little sense unless he also shares their religion and hence the taboo -- which, to all appearances, he does not.
But all this could be ignored; my real problem with this film was that it failed to engage or excite me, save for that one justly famous moment when the captured soldiers are dispatched one by one, transfixed by the horsemen's spears. Watching approaching death, Tyrone Power's face conveys emotion at last -- but the moment passes, and film and star alike go through the motions until the end.
Given its material, this could have been a great picture. As it turns out, it's just another genre entry, and a somewhat cursory one at that. The star's heart doesn't seem to be in it, and neither script nor action hold any great sparkle to compensate.