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BladeMARVELOUS ADVENTUI OF AMIABLE ROGUES/■*I✓ V ' .... • • • . r- • - *Twenty years wasn't too long to wait for £ robust and colorful screen treatment of Rudya Kipling's intriguing adventure story, The Mi Who Would Be King,” which currently is playii on the Peninsula.It was director John Huston’s pet project fro the mid-fifties and has finally come to the scree benefiting from reflection and maturity and two Britain's finest actors. Originally written to su the tatents of Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gabl the director-author couldn’t have done better ths casting Sean Connery and Michael Caine as tt British soldiers of fortune — “tough, rugged typ* without any guile or wickedness about what they’i doing. Or as Caine told the press recently, “W shot for their daring and audacity. They’re ami; ble lunatics.”What Huston has achieved in opening up £h short story Kipling wrote in the 1880s is a marve ously old-fashioned adventure. He focuses on tw rogues who set out to rule the kingdom of Kafirh tan, a high plateau in East Afghanistan now know as Nuristan. While dazzling the viewer with th spectacle of this exotic land {and a cast of thoi sands), he still keeps the story simple enough fo children to follow and yet profound enough t engage adults on a deeper level.The rewards are plenty as Huston (with ec writer Gladys Hill) traces the arrogant and cor ceited ex-British army sergeants through a pla that would be fantasy to some, suicide to other and devilishly exciting to others. They’re swin dlers, to be sure, but likeable con-artisfcs, jaunt; and spirited and almost convinced of their owi immortality.Despite their selfish motives and appallinj bigotry, you can’t help but cheer them on througl the perils of the Khyber Pass, blinding snowstorms that are right out of “Lost Horizon*1 and the kinc of chutzpah that makes their extraordinary ques as full of comedy as danger. It works on bott levels and, though Dankel Dravot (Connery) am Peachy Carnehan (Caine) are played seriously there’s a droll and warm, easy fellowship betweer them.You can take it as myth, legend, adventure psvcholoical drama, romance, tall tale or a metaphor for greed. Huston admits it’s all of these. The most interesting thing about “The Man Who Would Be King’’ is that it accepts the colonial experience. It does not apologize for the British Raj nor does It glamorize the natives. The British are shown with all their racist warts and the natives are a cruel, dirty and unpleasant lot.Thus, you have a nice paradox: an unromanticized romance. Huston is very cool. He holds back and doesn't turn loose the big moments', leading the viewer through an intriguing maze of flashbacks as recalled by Kipling (played superbly and subtly by Christopher Plummer), a young journalist for the Lahore Northern Star.The result is restrained spectacle with Morocco and the French Alps substituting for the Hindu Kush, the range of mountains where, according to legend, no white man since Alexander the Great has been. Much of the action takes place in a mountain stronghold allegedly built by Alexander in his invasion of India in 330 B.C. And it is his crown and fortune that Connery falls heir to bv convincing the high priest that* he is the son of Alexander.The two are an inseparable team as long as they follow the code: no women, no liquor and stick together to the end. But Connery looses his sense of proportion (and humor) when he finds the gold crown fits. Caine pulis up stakes, splits the spoils and bids adieu . . . but not in time.You can feel Kipling’s love for the country, its people and his admiration for the British soldier. Connery and Caine play blackmailers, liars, gunrunners, pickpockets and worthless scum with a nice flair. And although it’s their first picture together, you sense a camaraderie that is popular in such films today as ’'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and The Sting.Bandits they mav be, but they go to death singing an Irish regimental ditty. Billy Fish (Saeed Jaffrey), a Gurkha rifleman who becomes aide de camp to our two heroes, remarks that Englishmen may not be gods but they are “the next best thing. And, like a good Gurkha, when the jig is up, he brandishes his knife and charges the enemy' (200 to one), determined to die on foot.This may be hogwash in the minds cf some but it conquered a continent. Kipling saw the high water mark of the British Empire and sensed the change of tide. In many ways, “The Man Who Would Be King is a metaphor for the British' experience.
Newspaper Details
San Mateo Times
San Mateo, California, US
Mon, Jan 05, 1976
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Jon C.
NJ, USA 13 Jan 2020
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