Movies - The Man Who Would Be King

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	Movies - The Man Who Would Be King

The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 film adapted from the Rudyard Kipling story of the same title. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot, Michael Caine as Peachey Carnehan, and Christopher Plummer as Kipling (giving a name to the story's anonymous narrator).

The Kipling story tells the tale of two rogue British ex-soldiers who set off from 19th century British India in search of adventure, and end up as kings of Kafiristan. The story was inspired by the travels of American adventurer Josiah Harlan.

Shot on location in Morocco, Huston had planned to make the film since the 1950's: originally with Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, then Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, and then Robert Redford and Paul Newman — Newman suggested Connery and Caine. Like much of his writing, Kipling's original story is overtly imperialist; in Huston's telling, both East and West have their faults and virtues. In a retrospective review, the New York Times remarked "Gloriously old-fashioned in its approach - right down to the characters' politically incorrect attitudes toward anyone who isn't one hundred per cent British - The Man Who Would Be King is pure entertainment in the grand tradition of Gunga Din
."

Michael Caine has maintained that if any film of his is remembered after his death, it would be The Man Who Would Be King because it is the sort of film that everyone says, even when the film came out, "No-one makes pictures like this any more."

Although the film was shot in North Africa, the ethnic clothing and dancers in the background are clearly not middle-eastern. Maurice Jarre scored the film and invited classical Indian musicians to participate in the recording sessions with a traditional European symphony, blending the musical styles for the melodies, based around the hymn "The Minstrel Boy", which figures in the plot. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are heard singing on the LP and CD of the film music.

Synopsis

While at the offices of the Northern Star newspaper, Kipling is approached by a ragged, seemingly crazed derelict, who reveals himself to be his old acquaintance Peachy Carnehan. Peachy tells Kipling the story of how he and his cohort Danny Dravot traveled to remote Kafiristan, became gods, and ultimately lost everything.

After meeting Kipling at his newspaper office a few years earlier and signing a contract pledging mutual loyalty, Carnehan and Dravot muster an army from the natives of a Kafiristan village. In their first battle, the natives decide that Daniel is a god after he is shot with an arrow in the chest but continues fighting. In fact, the arrow has struck a bandolier beneath his clothing and become lodged in it, but the natives don't know this. When they arrive in the holy city of Sikandergul, the natives confuse their Masonic medals for symbols of Alexander the Great and declare the men to be gods.

Danny has delusions of grandeur, while Peachy wants to sneak out of the city with chests of gold and jewels. Danny decides to take a wife from amongst the natives, much against Peachy's advice; he chooses Roxanna (played by Michael Caine's wife Shakira). Roxanna fears no woman can live if they consort with a god, and so tries to escape from Daniel, biting him in the process. The bite draws blood, and when the natives see it they realise Daniel is human after all, and pursue him and Peachy through the streets of his erstwhile kingdom. Danny is killed when forced to walk to the middle of a rope bridge over a deep canyon; the ropes supporting it are cut and he falls to his death. Peachy is tortured and released. At the end of the film, as Peachy finishes his story, he presents Kipling with Danny's decaying head, still wearing its Kafiri crown.

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