Zarak is a 1957 CinemaScope adventure film based on the 1949 book The Story of Zarak Khan by A.J. Bevan. It was directed by Terence Young with assistance from John Gilling and Yakima Canutt. Set in the Northwest Frontier (though filmed in Morocco), the film stars Victor Mature, Michael Wilding and Anita Ekberg and features Patrick McGoohan in a supporting role. Plot Zarak Khan is the son of a chief who is caught embracing one of his father's wives, Salma. Zarak's father sentences both to torture and death but they are saved by an imam. The exiled Zarak becomes a bandit chief and an enemy of the British Empire. Cast Victor Mature as Zarak Khan Michael Wilding as Maj. Michael Ingram Anita Ekberg as Salma Bonar Colleano as Biri (Zarak's brother) Eunice Gayson as Cathy Ingram Finlay Currie as The Mullah Peter Illing as Ahmad Bernard Miles as Hassu the one-eyed Eddie Byrne as Kasim – Zarak's brother Patrick McGoohan as Moor Larkin Frederick Valk as Haji Khan (Zarak's father) André Morell as Maj. Atherton Harold Goodwin as Sgt. Higgins Alec Mango as Akbar (merchant) Oscar Quitak as Youssuff Development The film is based on a 1950 book written by A. J. Bevan that contained a foreword by field marshal William Slim. According to Bevan, the real Zarak Khan was an Afghan who spent most of his life fighting the British in the northwest frontier in the 1920s and 1930s. Among his crimes was the murder of a holy man. He eventually surrendered and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Andaman Islands. However, when the Japanese occupied the islands, he remained in his cell. Khan was eventually dealt a suspended sentence and worked for the British in Burma. In 1943 he was leading a patrol when its British officer was killed in an ambush. He watched another British patrol attacked by the Japanese and sent messengers to summon a Gurkha force. To stop the Japanese from escaping with their prisoners before the Gurkhas arrived, he attacked them singlehandedly and killed or wounded six soldiers before being overpowered. He refused to be beheaded and insisted on being flayed alive to buy time to enable the Gurkhas to arrive. Warwick Films bought the film rights in 1953. Producer Irving Allen said he was more interested in the character of Zarak Khan than in the events described in the book. He was