Review of "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975), by Regis M. Donovan
John Huston's adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King" is a classic swashbuckler about two former British soldiers who decide, in true colonial imperialistic style, to take their guns, march into the untouched wilds, and carve out a place among the savages so they can live as kings.
The two errant adventurers, Danny Dravot (Sean Connery) and Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine), head into the unknowns of Kafiristan where they find a kingdom untouched by the modern world and ruled long ago by Alexander the Great. After the help of some incredible coincidences and a few Masonic symbols, the two manage to convince the priestly rulers that Dravot is a god.
Of course, hubris like Dravot's must be followed by a fall, and eventually things collapse into fighting, heroic endings, and British stiff upper lips.
Originally conceived as a vehicle for Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart, Huston provides an adventure that received 4 Academy Award nominations including one for best adapted screenplay. Connery and Caine admirably head a marvelous cast including Christopher Plummer (as Rudyard Kipling) and Saeed Jaffrey.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews