Three British soldiers (Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell) serving in the 41st Bengal Lancers on the Afghan-Indian frontier deal with strict officers, a renegade warlord (Douglass Dumbrille), a sexy Russian agent and hordes of turban-wearing cannon fodder in this pseudo-historical actioner loosely based on the eponymous autobiography by Francis Yeats-Brown. Needless to say the basic premise (heroic colonial soldiers vs. Nefarious natives) and the speeches about the might and right of the British Raj would not pass inspection these days. The plot is essentially a sequence of opportunities for heroic bro-bonding and the melodramatic style of the film is dated but there are some spectacular set-pieces (such as the cavalry charge that begins the assault on Khan's mountain redoubt). Cooper is a pretty typical Hollywood hero (putting 'right' before 'orders', behaviour that likely would have had him promptly cashiered from a non-celluloid army). While some current viewers would be quick to condemn the film for its glorification of colonialism, 'The Lives of a Bengal Lancer' a product of its times and some consideration should be given to the attitudes that prevailed when it was made. Amusingly, American actor Cooper plays a Canadian (a standard Hollywood dodge when sneaking Yank stars into British history) while his Bengali nemesis Khan is played by a Canadian.