The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

John Huston

Writers:

John Huston (screenplay) and
Gladys Hill (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

17 DECEMBER 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure

Tagline:

Adventure in all its glory!

Plot:

Two British soldiers in India decide to resign from the Army and set themselves up as deities in Kafiristan--a land where no white man has set foot since Alexander.

Plot Keywords:

India | King | Soldier | Treasure | Friendship

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 4 nominations

Cast

Sean Connery	...	Daniel Dravot
Michael Caine	...	Peachy Carnehan
Christopher Plummer	...	Rudyard Kipling
Saeed Jaffrey	...	Billy Fish
Doghmi Larbi	...	Ootah
Jack May	...	District Commissioner
Karroom Ben Bouih	...	Kafu Selim
Mohammad Shamsi	...	Babu
Albert Moses	...	Ghulam
Paul Antrim	...	Mulvaney
Graham Acres	...	Officer
The Blue Dancers of Goulamine	...	Dancers
Shakira Caine	...	Roxanne

Also Known As:

Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King (UK) (complete title) (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

129 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Iceland:12 | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Company:

Allied Artists Pictures

Trivia:

Karroom Ben Bouih (High Priest Kafu Selim) was the night watchman of an olive orchard near the filming location. He was hired after John Huston accidentally met him, and told to come to the set the following day. After he fell asleep a few times during filming, it was discovered that he had still kept his night watchman job. Huston had to explain to him that he didn't need that job any more - the film company would pay him enough that he could sleep at night.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Peachy and Danny travel with the caravan into the Khyber Pass, all of the camels are African (Arabian) dromedaries, rather than Asian (Bactrian) beasts, which would have been used on the Central Asian trade routes. This however is due to the fact (as acknowledged in end-credits) that the film was shot at location in Morocco (in westernmost Africa) not in Pakistan/Afghanistan where these events supposed to have taken place.

Quotes:

Peachy Carnehan: Now, the problem is, how to divide five Afghans from three mules and have two Englishmen left over.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Call It Magic (1975)

This story is about a real place!

What most viewers do not realize about The Man Who Would Be King (1975) is that it is not about a legendary place, although Rudyard Kipling may have thought so when he wrote the story, because no white man had ever been there and returned to tell about it.

The place was then known as Kafiristan and is now known as Nuristan. It is in Eastern Afghanistan next to Chitral, which is in Northwest Pakistan.

Place names in the movie, such as Kamdesh and Bashgal, are real places in Nuristan. The explorer Robertson, whom Billy Fish reports has having died, did not die in real life but was rescued by a British military force in 1895, after Kipling wrote his story.

The people of Nuristan are believed to be descendants of Alexander the Great, who came there in 328 BC, just as the movie states. They had a pagan religion as the movie describes until they were forcibly converted to Islam in 1892. There are still some believers of the old religion in the Kalash Valleys of Pakistan.

For more about these people see http://www.samsloan.com/damik.htm

I know about all this because I have been there and I married a woman named Honzagool there. She did not bite me as did the wife of Sean Connery in the movie, however.

Sam Sloan