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The Lost Patrol is a milestone in John Ford's career, the beginning of his critical eminence. He'd been directing for 17 years and his talent was apparent from the outset, but this film marked his boldest step toward independent creative status. It also marked the beginning of his association with producer Merian C. Cooper, a partnership that would yield many fine films and culminate in Ford's masterpiece, The Searchers, in 1956.

The story by Philip MacDonald--about a handful of British soldiers lost in the Mesopotamian Desert during World War I and slowly decimated by an unseen enemy--is a primal tale of a struggle for survival against implacable forces: the baking sun, the undulating white vastness of the dunes, the rise of despair and madness, and the drift of ghostly mirages, some of which may be men with guns. Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols won kudos at the time for utterly eschewing sentimentalism, glib heroics, and anything else that would compromise the extremity of the situation.

The movie is also an experiment in almost nonstop music scoring, something composer Max Steiner had been working toward in the Cooper-produced The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong (Ford and Steiner would continue the experiment in The Informer the following year). This and some over-the-top acting--especially by Boris Karloff as a religious zealot--seriously compromise the film today, but the intensity and eeriness, Ford's powerful visuals, and Victor McLaglen's commanding portrayal of the unnamed Sergeant carry the day.