Philip MacDonald's novel, Patrol, was previously filmed in 1929 by writer/director Walter Summers, for British Instructional Films, and remade by John Ford in 1934 for RKO - his first picture for the studio. Later reissued by the studio and subsequently packaged for TV in the old C&C Movietime format, Lost Patrol, like the silent version, never enjoyed a proper home video release, so it's a real treat to finally see it on DVD.

A vast improvement over the beat-up 16mm TV prints, Warner Bros.' transfer is taken from a coarse but superior print, and the studio maintains a safe balance between noise reduction and the print's natural grain level. Where the transfer runs into problems is actually in the sound department: dialogue is often very low and murky, although sharpening and boosting problem areas may have created a worse situation; since Max Steiner's music is wall-to wall, it would've been affected by sudden volume leaps and dry noise filtration.

John Ford fans will relish the beautifully photographed production, in which stranded legionnaires are picked off by unseen Arabs and begin to go cuckoo. Patrol, however, is also somewhat of a disappointment, as it's one of those long-unavailable, unseen flicks that grow in stature, aided by scholarly texts, and aging appreciations by avid Fordites.

To those expecting a mini-masterpiece of tension and gripping story, the reality of Patrol might be a shock: supposedly trained legionnaires poke their heads way up to look for their enemies, and get a metal pebble in the brain; colleagues never learn that running past the protective sand dunes bearing insults and aimless gunshots will neither frighten their unseen enemies, nor protect them from buckshot. And a later chance at rescue is ruined when the group's ephemeral savior is a walking British caricature of politesse and stupidity (and deserves to suffer the slings and arrows of Peter's Rule: if you're an idiot, you deserve to die).

With the exception of slender Victor McLaglen (who interestingly takes over the role brother Cyril performed in the '29 version), most of the actors deliver highly theatrical performances, and the novel casting of Boris Karloff becomes a serious liability: once the group hunkers down in the crumbling edifice within the oasis, the religious zealotry of Karloff's character fuels a physical performance recalling his horror personas - employing exaggerated motions, and over-stated posturing.

It's an acting style directors like Ford would later reign in, aware that grand gestures, grimaces, eye rolling, and extreme posing weren't necessary when the camera lens could take an actor's unshaven and dirty face, and more naturally convey fatigue, disillusionment, and desperation through a close-up. Karloff's interpretation of a zealot going nutso from the heat and arm's length death is sometimes deliciously fun, but the moral tirades from writers Dudley Nichols and Garrett Fort make the character of Sanders a grating annoyance.

Max Steiner's score is also a mixed bag, as the composer's secondary theme possesses the same cloying attributes of his 1948 score for Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Perhaps leftover from the silent era or typical of Ford's own tastes, the score incorporates fragments from popular marches, folk themes, and anthems, although the main theme is an energetic piece of exotica that was later incorporated as the action theme in the composer's 1942 Casablanca score.

One challenge when tracing Ford's directorial evolution is how few films made prior to 1934 exist on DVD. Like the Patrol and Arrowsmith, these are seminal works that preceded the classics, and Warner Bros.' DVD is hopefully a more recent effort by studios to bring out some of these goodies from the studio vaults into the home video libraries of film fans. Flawed and dated to varying degrees, they're important in tracing a director's style, quirks, oddball obsessions, and showcasing the talents of actors that, in Patrol, would become part of the Ford Stock Company.

After Patrol, Ford went on a classic spree, directing The Informer (1935), Wee Willie Winkie, The Hurricane (both 1936), Four Men and a Prayer (1938), Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk (all 1939) before the end of the decade.

Philip MacDonald's 1943 desert opus, Sahara, incorporated the stranded-soldiers-in-an-oasis concept, although it was later tweaked and reused in later westerns and action films, including works like John Carpenter's revisionist Assault on Precinct 13, which had convicts and lawmen fighting and later working together as killers launched repeated attacks on a building that functioned as a safe oasis within an barren urban desert.

This title is part of Warner Bros.' John Ford Collection, which includes Cheyenne Autumn, The Lost Patrol (1934), The Informer, Sergeant Rutledge, and Mary of Scotland.

© 2006 Mark R. Hasan