The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935): Cast & Plot

On the northwest frontier of India during the British Raj, Scottish Canadian Lieutenant Alan McGregor [Gary Cooper] oversees the arrival of two replacements to the 41st Bengal Lancers: Lieutenant John Forsythe [Franchot Tone], an experienced cavalryman with a teasing streak, and Lieutenant Donald Stone [Richard Cromwell], the son of the unit’s commander, Colonel Tom Stone [Guy Standing]. Stone eagerly anticipated frontier service and even believed his father had sent for him, but the colonel keeps him at arm’s length and treats him the same as all the other men. This rigid, by-the-book approach fractures the younger Stone, who has not seen his father since boyhood, and soon drives him toward a self-made sense of isolation and disappointment.