The Long Duel

There is a real give-away in an early scene in this movie. Happy mountain villagers are baiting the local dancing bear. The evil Brits, when they take the village, kill the bear (probably putting it out of its tortured existence, but I digress). Given the star quality of the leads (and even some of the minor actors)in this film, I expected much more. Almost any Raj movie is better than this one. Howard looked embarrassed to be there. Rampling to find him a love interest? I don't think so!(Spoiler: I think even she looked relieved when he said no.) I will give marks for efforts in verisimilitude in making the Indian Police look like they were of the era, even though most were played by white men in brown-face. The fort set was terrific. As always, Harry Andrews was excellent playing Harry Andrews. Buy "The Drum".

Brynner and his tribe are removed by the British (Andrews) for resettlement. He escapes and gathers other tribes together to take on the British. A film of 2 halves. The first is baggy and messy with Brynner looking bored and uncomfortable and Howerd the only interesting character. It all picks up in the second half which is exciting and contains some strong battle scenes. A fair film but considering the cast and director, it should have been a lot better.

Given the talent of the star players in this film, I was disappointed. Trevor Howard tries to work with what he's given, but Yul Brynner's performance was wooden and predictable. Despite what some of the other reviewers have said,I thought this film was not nearly as good as it COULD have been, and the biggest problem was the script. Boring, hackneyed, clichéd lines choked any life out of this story which, as noted, has a basis in real life. The battle scenes were poorly done, and I found myself fast-forwarding through them to get back to the dialog, as bad as it was. I can't fault the actors so much as the script and direction. Howard and Brynner deserved better. As an action movie, when compared to some of the other mid-1960s efforts, it falls far short.

Films of this genre were popular in the sixties,all trying to emulate Lawrence of Arabia and The Guns of Navarone.Now this film may not match up to those but it was a decent film to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon.The one flaw was the ridiculous romantic interest between 54 year old Trevor Howard and 21 year old Charlotte Rampling.Rampling is of course still going strong nearly 40 years later.Indeed her credits show her currently involved with no less than 7 films.Sadly Imogen Hassell was not able to sustain her career and committed suicide.You Brunner shows us what a commanding presence he was.There are a lot of action sequences well handled,though the machine gun sequences seem very much like those included in North West Frontier.

The adventure yarn as it used to be a long long time ago.There's the proud rebel "Sultan" (Brynner) who's fighting against the English (represented by a loyal brave generous officer-Howard- and a villain one -Andrews-).And Andrews looks the part ! As the case often happens,to hear the scenarists ,if a father is wicked,then the daughter is adorable:she's played by a decorative Charlotte Rampling ,who tells Howard -whom she's in love with of course-:"one day ,Sultan and you ,you will meet".Main interest remains the splendor of the landscapes.