cult film freak: KATHERINE WOODVILLE & OLIVER REED 'THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR'

Written by James M. Tate / 1/16/2025 / No comments / action , adventure , duncan lamont , glyn houston , hammer films , katherine woodville , oliver reed , ronald lewis , sixties , yvonne romain

KATHERINE WOODVILLE & OLIVER REED 'THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR'

1/16/2025 | No comment

Katherine Woodville in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR Year: 1965 Rating: **1/2

With the seven Hammer Films featuring then-rising young star Oliver Reed, sometimes there's a feeling they didn't quite know how great a thing they had... even in his very own titular horror, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, he doesn't appear until around forty-five-minutes (although the previous sequences are intensely entertaining)... and in THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER, he dies way too soon...

Same thing happens here, since, as the leader of a band of holed-up Indian (from India) rebels who kidnap Ronald Lewis... playing a half-Caucasian/Indian treated unfairly by fellow British soldiers led by Duncan Lamont... Reed's not supposed to be the main star, billed second to Hammer's square-jawed SCREAM OF FEAR and STOP ME BEFORE I KILL Lewis...

From THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

But Oliver simply doesn't have enough zesty screen-time overall, intensely channeling Anthony Quinn's zesty Arab rogue in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and again cast with his WEREWOLF co-star Yvonne Romain, looking voluptuous and alluring as usual while, as Reed's jealous sister, she doesn't have much to do but stand around and brood, without even really trying to seduce the handsome half-caste leading man...

Leaving most of the romantic ingenue role to equally gorgeous Katherine Woodville (who had also co-starred with Reed, in THE PARTY'S OVER) since her affair with hero Lewis... who supposedly deliberately abandoned her doomed husband... provides equal worth with the most conveniently dull character in Glyn Houston's wartime journalist (himself channeling Arthur Kennedy from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA), acting so breezy and bland that he never seems in very much danger: a microcosm of how this entire 1850's-era war-adventure lacks tension (and purpose) throughout.

Yvonne Romain and Oliver Reed in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Ronald Lewis and Oliver Reed in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Katherine Woodville in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Katherine Woodville in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR with Glyn Houston

Oliver Reed in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Katherine Woodville in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Yvonne Romain in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Ronald Lewis in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Yvonne Romain in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Oliver Reed in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

Ronald Lewis and Oliver Reed in THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR

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Tags : action , adventure , duncan lamont , glyn houston , hammer films , katherine woodville , oliver reed , ronald lewis , sixties , yvonne romain

James M. Tate

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