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People are voting emotionally.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Very nice looking movie; the restored DVD from VCI fixed up a lot of grain on other DVD releases. Good use of an actual old locomotive; and the Spanish locations do a good job of looking like India. One nice point (a mild spoiler): the two Indian soldiers on the train survive the film, and are useful during the entire journey. Go Team Redshirt! The child actor is much more agreeable than most.

North West Frontier (1959)Also known as "Flame Over India."For starters, you have to ignore that rather boring first few minutes, and the awful acting in it, including the routine battle scenes quickly thrown at you. It's all set up for the main themes of this movie set in an India still under British control, circa 1905. The real historical import of all this is that it's set in that part of India that was largely Muslim and is now modern Pakistan. But part of what happens here is to show the brutality of the Muslims toward the Hindu minority, all in an effort for self-determination.There are lots of conventions at work here--Hollywood ones. Like the train being chased not by American Indians but by rebel Muslims on horseback, and they are picked off by the men on the train like, well, Indians. It's a weird deja vu moment in an otherwise very British film (not Hollywood after all).The British are a target here, actually, to some of the writing, as are men in general, all from the sharp tongue of Lauren Bacall, who is perfectly the strong American woman. Next to her is an understated, convincing British soldier played by Kenneth More.This is actually an ambitious movie, for all its relative obscurity now. There are harrowing scenes of a city under siege, and of a massacre of hundreds of bodies very elaborately staged (Bacall walks through the corpses in shot after shot), and a sequence high atop a railroad bridge. Of course, it's more than politics and warfare and adventure. That is, there's the slowly simmering love story, and it's not an overly sentimental one. It might seem an odd thing to mention here but the filming--the photography--is really really good, interesting and subtle. It's widescreen color (though not Technicolor) and the camera refuses to be static, even in simple scenes with a group of people chatting on the train. It pans and rolls forward and back with fluid, tactile sensitivity. The sets and scenery are wonderful--shot in the deserts of Spain (not India, except a couple establishing shots), with a vintage train car on the old rails. The interior stuff (in the cars) are partly done in a studio in England with back projection of scenery out the window, but it's all very convincing stuff. The cameraman is the under-appreciated British cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, who became one of the industry experts at back projection (and the revolutionary "front projection" of 1968--he was key to the filming "2001," with Kubrick, and its fabulous visuals). He made a whole slew of films in the same sensitive style seen here, finally winning Oscars toward the end of his life (including "Tess" posthumously). I'd recommend this film on the photography alone.You might say this is a perfectly realized film, and what holds it back for modern audiences is its relative ease and calm, and perhaps a history now forgotten. It's a careful film with great nuance. The acting is first rate, though some of the characters are "types" in the same way Ford's "Stagecoach" played with types caught together in a confined space. This film has its expansive moments for sure, but in a way it's a ship of fools situation. What it also lacks is perhaps complexity to the plot, which sounds weird with all the complicated sets and filming, but there is a linear process of the main group of characters trying to escape to their safety, obstacle after obstacle. There are some more archetypal moments straight from an American Western (a fight on the roof of the train, a woman with a gun to the rescue) but it's all part of the excitement. The "Stagecoach" echo appears in the form of a baby, too, halfway through.In case you are unsure of the British sentiment embedded here, and the foreshadowing of the future that was known at the 1958 filming (a decade after the Brits were booted out of India), watch the last scene carefully. And remember the train is called "Victoria." And check out the photography even on the last gorgeous shot, turning and pulling up and back and turning again. Nice stuff!

*Spoiler/plot- 1963, A daring British officer and an intrepid American governess risk it all to spirit a five year old prince to safety in this adventure in Northwest India on a rickety old steam train with unusual fellows travelers over a 300 miles with a spy on board.*Special Stars- Lauren Bacall, Kenneth Moore *Theme- English pluck and spirit along with Yankee courage is a good winning combination.*Trivia/location/goofs- British Rank Film production and a film in the memorable Samuel Goldwyn series for fine movie entertainment.*Emotion- It's an enjoyable film of the English in India. Shows the beauty and splendor that is Upper Frontier India and its complex societal issues with religion, race, and culture. The added treat of Ms. Bacall being classy and stubborn is a plus for this adventure film. A gem of a film.

India in 1905 was a country in transition and turmoil, the Moslems and Hindus were warring on each other and on other minority groups and everybody wanted the British out. The Congress Party was a going concern at that point and was still a vehicle for both Moslem and Hindu to work within.If every single man at arms that the British Empire could command had been stationed in India at any time, they could never have ruled such a vast area in land and population. They did it with a lot of collaboration, some of it willing, some of it a matter of convenience. Very little of what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh was ruled outright by the British. They worked in collaboration with the various rulers of the many provinces, some Hindu, some Moslem.In this story, a Hindu maharajah's state is being overrun by Moslem rebels. Kenneth More as a British captain is charged with getting the small son out of the kingdom and to safety along with the child's nurse, an American played by Lauren Bacall.On a train of one coach, More, Bacall, and the child Gorinda Raja Ross flee the kingdom. Other passengers on the train are arms dealer Eugene Decker, newspaper correspondent Herbert Lom, the wife of the provincial governor Ursula Jeans, and the governor's secretary Wilfrid Hyde-White. The train is driven by Indian actor I.S. Johar and more has a small group of Sepoy troops to help out.The journey to safety is the bulk of the story of Northwest Frontier and on that journey all the people show their character. One of them will betray the others. All of them have flaws of a sort. The British really do believe in Kipling's white man's burden about keeping order among the people of India. To a greater or lesser degree they have a racial prejudice about the place. Only Bacall as an American and an outsider is seemingly free of it.Not to say that most of them aren't a brave bunch because in the crunch most step up to the plate.The story was written by Patrick Ford, John's son and others have pointed out that he borrowed liberally from his dad's masterpiece Stagecoach. The final attack on the train by the Moslem rebels is as exciting as that attack by other kinds of Indians in Stagecoach. Kenneth More as the hero of the piece is not the Ringo Kid however. John Wayne was on his own mission when he became part of the Stagecoach ensemble, More is a British officer with a mission.The various maharajahs and nawabs were all pensioned off as per the Mountbatten settlement in 1947. I'd like to think the young prince grew up and inherited his kingdom and got pensioned out of it along with a few hundred others of his class. One kingdom missed the settlement, that of Kashmir which is today the sore point between India and Pakistan.Director J. Lee Thompson was at the beginning of a great career directing some fine action films. Northwest Frontier is a fine action film and you can learn a great deal about the Indian subcontinent in the viewing of it.