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The Black Watch

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6.0/10 • 14

1929-05-221h 32m

DramaAdventureWar

To lead an army was her ambition —but to love one man was her fervid passion

Captain Donald King is sent to India to carry out a secret mission while the Black Watch, his regiment, leaves for France at the outbreak of the First World War.

Directors
John Ford
Editors
Alex Troffey

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Victor McLaglen

    Victor McLaglen

    Captain Donald King

  2. Myrna Loy

    Myrna Loy

    Yasmani

  3. David Torrence

    David Torrence

    Field Marshal

  4. David Rollins

    David Rollins

    Lieutenant Malcolm King

  5. Cyril Chadwick

    Cyril Chadwick

    Major Twynes

  6. Lumsden Hare

    Lumsden Hare

    Black Watch Colonel

  7. Roy D'Arcy

    Roy D'Arcy

    Rewa Ghunga

  8. David Percy

    David Percy

    David

  9. Mitchell Lewis

    Mitchell Lewis

    Major Mohammed Khan

Reviews1

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Mar 27, 2025

6/10

This might have fared better with a stronger leading character because, for my money, getting Victor McLaglen to play a captain in the Royal Scots engaging in some tribal Indian subterfuge was just a mission too far! Anyway, he is “King” who just as his regiment is heading for France is re-routed to the Northwest Territories of India on a top secret mission. His erstwhile colleagues view this as akin to desertion, but we know that his task to discover and destroy a massive arms dump that could spell doom and destruction for the Raj and rescue some hostages is something that this locally born man is best suited to do. Pretty effortlessly this six-foot gent finds and infiltrates the tribe and thanks to the sponsorship of it’s high priestess “Yasmani” (Myrna Loy) manages to formulate a plan to thwart the cunning antics of the would-be revolutionaries. The last ten minutes or so bring the story alive and allow the engaging McLaglen to show us a little of the glint in his eye, but the rest of this is a remarkably stage-bound exercise that rarely ventures outdoors and rather than steeping us in end-to-end action, rather drowns us in end-to-end dialogue. Loy looks every inch the star, but more of the silent movies than a talkie as her poise is perfect but her pitch “will you obey my commands?” much less so. Inadvertently, perhaps, the conclusion also reminds us just how the tiny contingent of British soldiers did manage to subdue a population hundreds of times their number and of course there isn’t a great deal of jeopardy as the story takes a bit too long to reach it’s predictable end. I do like the genre, but this is just a bit too static an interpretation of derring-do to stick in the mind for long with some of the editing looking like it was done on a rollercoaster.

Media

  • The Black Watch poster
  • The Black Watch poster
  • The Black Watch poster
  • The Black Watch poster
  • The Black Watch poster

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
based on novel or bookbritish empirebritish rajkhyber pass