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I understand that John Huston wanted to make this film for some time and originally had hoped to cast Clark Gable & Humphrey Bogart as the leads....the film was shelved because of Bogart's then Gable's death. The project was resurrected 20 odd years later with Sean Connery and Michael Caine securing the leads. This film is Caine's and Connery's best and I feel the movie is an underappreciated classic. I love this film because it has the essentials of great writing ,acting and direction unlike many of today's movies with their reliance on computer animation and special effects. John Huston wrote the screenplay based on the Kipling storyline and it engages and holds you from start to finish. The Man Who Would Be King is a great,great film.
This adventure/comedy starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery is well written, superbly acted, and fun to watch. A mixture of Masonic ritual, military discipline, and fierce determination to live their lives their own way, brings Connery and Caine to Rudyard Kipling's door - and beyond into the northern Indian frontier where fueding tribes accept Danny (Connery) as a god and elect him to lead them to thier promised greatness. Christopher Plummer plays an acerbic and reluctant Kipling, and Caine's gorgeous wife Shakira is seen naked. The twist in the tail is unexpected and highly original. GKR
In a story narrated by a British journalist, presumably Rudyard Kipling himself, while on a tour of some native Indian states he runs into two scruffy scoundrels, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan. Rather liking them, he stopped them from a blackmailing scheme of a rajah, fearing that he would have them killed if they were caught. A few months later they stroll into his office in Lahor. After a career of bring soldiers, sailors, photographers, railroad engineers and more, they inform him that they have had it with India, and they are off to Kafifistan, where they intend to set themselves up as kings. Danny can pass himself off as a native and they have twenty Martini-Henry Rifles. Their plan is to find a leader who is having trouble, and help him defeat his enemies, and then take over for themselves. They asked Kipling for the use of any books and maps he might have of the area as a favor. Being fellow Freemasons they promise not to steal anything. On a scorching hot summer night, Carnahan creeps back into Kiplings office. His body and mind are those of a completely broken man. Clad in nothing but filthy rags, he tells this amazing story. He and Danny succeeded in becoming kings. They found the Kafirs, who were white and hairy with fair skin. They mustered armies, and took over many villages. The Kafirs turned out to be pagans, and not Muslims. The Kafirs practiced a form of Masonic ritual, and Danny and Peachie knew Masonic secrets that only the oldest priests remembered. Upon seeing Danny struck in the chest by an arrow that he simply pulled out and discarded, they all stopped fighting. The arrow struck a thick leather pouch under his uniform. Later when the high priest looked at his chest and found no wound, he acclaimed Danny to be a god, the Son of Alexander the Great. In possession of enormous wealth, Danny foolishly decided to marry a Kafir girl. Legend said that she would burst into flames if touched by a god, she was terrified to marry him. Overcome by love for the maiden, Daniel attempted to kiss the girl and she bit him on his face. When the priests saw his face bleed, they declared that he was neither god nor devil, but a man! Almost all of the Kafirs turned against them except one whom they called "Billy Fish". He and a few of his men. stayed loyal, but the rest defected. Danny and Peachie were captured. Danny, wearing his crown, stood in the middle of the rope bridge that had been built over the gorge while the Kafirs cut the ropes on either end, sending Danny plunging to his death. Peachie was crucified. When the Kafirs saw that he was still alive the next day, they said it was a miracle and let him go. He survived by begging his way back to India. As proof of his story, Peachie left a sack containing Danny's head, still wearing his golden crown. Kipling saw Peachie the next day crawling along in the noon sun without his hat. He had gone mad. Kipling sent him to the local asylum. Two days later when he inquired, he found out that Peachie had died of sunstroke.Read full review
Connery and Caine are excellent in this Rudyard Kipling tale of two army buddies who set out to find riches in a remote region of the Empire once visited by Alexander The Great... All goes well for them when Connery is mistaken for a godly descendant of Alexander by the native people's high priests... It is only when Connery decides to wed a beautiful young woman, that his human frailty is exposed with disastrous consequences for both men...
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Great Adventure with very good acting & directing. Read the Kipling story, also. One of his best. He knew Rider Haggard. That should tell you something. The movie is better than escape fiction, but it will give plenty of thrills.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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