The Man Who Would Be King

Among the last of the old-fashioned adventure films, John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) is a boatload of fun. An adaptation of a Rudyard Kipling story, King is a perfect mixture of traditional irreverence and post-modern cynicism, and its director and larger-than-life stars invest the story with wit, charm and muscular verve.

India at the height of the British Raj. A pair of ex-soldiers, Freemasons, vagabonds and petty crooks - Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery) and Peachy Carnahan (Michael Caine) - graduate from petty blackmail and gun-running to a far more ambitious scheme: to trek to distant Kafiristan, "land of two and thirty idols," establish their own private empire and amass a mighty fortune. They persuade an incredulous Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer), a fellow Freemason, to help set their scheme in motion. The duo miraculously make it to Kafiristan, and begin playing local tribes against one another to advance their own ends. After a "miraculous" battlefield incident, Dravot is mistaken for the reincarnation of Alexander the Great, and is instated as a living God in the holy city of Sikandergul. Dravot and Carnahan are only too happy to oblige, but their plan goes awry when Dravot starts believe he is Alexander.

Huston's film is an interesting companion piece to John Milius's The Wind and the Lion, released the same year with the same star by the same studio (Huston even cameos in the latter). While Milius all but endorses imperialism, Huston casts a more cynical eye on "the White Man's Burden." Danny and Peachy's operation serves as a textbook primer for aspiring imperialists: play on a country's internal divisions, usurp local customs, establish yourself on top and rob your subjects blind. Of course, their scheme ultimately unravels as Danny dreams of building Kafiristan into a modern state. His defying the local Gods and marriage to an unwilling "mortal" (Shakira Caine, wife of Michael) turn away the credulous but suspcious natives: however good the intentions, some cultures don't want to be "civilized," especially by arrogant outsiders with little respect for them.

However, The Man Who Would Be King is no anti-imperial screed. Huston keeps his tongue firmly in cheek, cheerfully reviving the matinee fun of Gunga Din with dashing heroes, exotic locales and rousing action scenes. The casual racism of '30s epics (and Kipling's own work) is played for laughs: audiences uncomfortable with such movies will find this playful subversion a treat. Our heroes are a marvellous pair of charming rogues, charismatic and cunning, endlessly chipper ("If a Greek can do it, we can do it!"), devious and greedy yet heroic in their own way. Aided by an endlessly witty and quotable script (not to mention Sean Connery and Michael Caine), Danny and Peachy earn our affection, if not our admiration. It may not be high art, and its narrative is a bit simplistic at times, but as well-crafted, intelligent escapism King hard to beat.

The movie is beautiful to look at. Morocco is a more-than-adequate stand-in for Central Asia and Huston gives it a perfect sense of scope, with its heroes trekking through crowded Indian slums, arid desert and freezing mountains. The pacing is a bit uneven: Huston is content to linger on exposition and spectacle while turning long stretches of action into elliptical montages. This is a minor complaint all things concerned, however. Maurice Jarre contributes a fine score, more understated than much of his work but capturing the right note of high adventure.

Sean Connery and Michael Caine are a dream pair: each are at the top of their game, comporting themselves with pitch-perfect chemistry, charm and wit. For Connery in particular, it's a career high-water mark: between this and The Wind and the Lion, he was finally able to shed the James Bond persona and become a star in his own right. Christopher Plummer (The Night of the Generals) is a spot-on Kipling though he has little to do with the main story. Saeed Jaffrey (A Passage to India) essays a charming supporting role as the protagonists' Gurkha sidekick.

When it comes to 1975 adventure films starring Sean Connery, I probably prefer The Wind and the Lion for sentimental reasons. But it's hard to argue with The Man Who Would Be King, which stands on its own as a fine entry in a long-lost genre.