The Lost Patrol

Directed by John Ford in 1934 and adapted from Philip MacDonald's novel, this film is set in the Mesopotamian desert during the First World War. A British cavalry patrol's lieutenant is shot by a sniper, and he was the only man who knew their orders, which he had told no one. The sergeant leads the eleven survivors to an oasis where they are picked off one by one by unseen attackers, the mutilated bodies of those sent for help are returned to them, and a religious fanatic loses his mind under the strain. There is a layer of reality in the casting: Victor McLaglen, who plays the sergeant, was a genuine First World War veteran who had served as assistant provost marshal in Baghdad, meaning he knew the territory the film depicts firsthand. Boris Karloff, who plays the man driven mad by war, had in fact tried to enlist and been rejected for a heart murmur. It was shot in the California and Arizona deserts under conditions that left the crew battling dysentery and extreme heat. It was one of three nominees the year the Academy first gave an award for score, though at the time the honor went not to the composer but to the head of a studio's music department, and Max Steiner, being both, was credited in that capacity. Who it's for: Anyone curious about the film that set the template for the besieged small unit story, and about early Ford. Who it's not for: Not for viewers who want to see the enemy, since the tension comes precisely from the attackers never appearing.