The Man Who Would Be King
All actors and roles (10)
All team (39)
Short description
Two former British soldiers, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, grow tired of scraping by in nineteenth-century India and set out to make their fortune in the remote mountain region of Kafiristan. Their journey takes them through difficult terrain, and once they arrive they put their military experience to use. When a wound Dravot suffers in battle turns out to be harmless, the local people take it as proof he is something more than human, and the two men find themselves ruling the country. Their authority rests on a deception that becomes harder to maintain as the story goes on.
John Huston directed the film, working from a screenplay he wrote with Gladys Hill, based on Rudyard Kipling's story. It was the seventeenth of the twenty-two features Huston directed, coming after The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and before Wise Blood. Sean Connery and Michael Caine play Dravot and Carnehan, with Christopher Plummer as Kipling and Saeed Jaffrey as Billy Fish. The production cost about eight million dollars.
On IMDb the film holds 7.7 out of 10 from roughly 55,000 votes, and on TMDB it stands at 7.5 from around 738 votes. A critics' score of 8.9 from 34 reviews places it notably higher than the audience ratings, a sign of strong regard among professional reviewers. It runs 129 minutes.
What's left behind the scenes
- During filming, Sean Connery personally performed a risky stunt: he fell from a rope bridge into a chasm. The scene was filmed in a deep gorge, and Sean fell about a hundred feet before landing on a large pile of cardboard boxes. The episode was shot several times, and not every time did he have to fall deep into the chasm. Documentary footage of the film's shooting clearly shows Connery falling from the bridge into a safety net in one of the takes, descending about 15 meters.
- For 103-year-old Karum Ben Buikh, who played the high priest Kafu-Selim, this role was his first and last in his life.
- Karum Ben Buikh was a watchman at an olive grove located near the filming location. He was invited to appear in the film after a chance encounter with John Huston. After the centenarian fell asleep several times during filming, it was discovered that he still worked as a watchman, filming during the day and guarding the olive grove at night. Huston explained to him that Ben Buikh no longer needed his old job, as he would be well paid for filming the movie.
- Several kilometers from Tanaghout, an hour's drive from Marrakech, the filmmakers built the fairytale Sacred City of Sikandergul on one of the hills. Ultimately, 30 different locations in the vicinity of Marrakech and Ouarzazate were used for filming.
- After filming "The Man Who Would Be King," Sean Connery and Michael Caine were supposed to receive 5% of the profits. Allied Artists studio cheated Connery and Caine, underpaying them $110,000 each. They decided to sue the studio, despite the risk of losing an amount far greater than what they were claiming. It was a matter of principle, as the proud Scotsman Sean stated. Allied Artists immediately issued a statement accusing Caine and Connery of publishing false and defamatory statements damaging to the company. In the ensuing verbal war, Connery struck back, telling the "New York Times" about the corruption prevalent in Hollywood. This was followed by the delivery of a lawsuit from Allied Artists to him for $21 million for defamation, and both actors received lawsuits for $10 million each for discrediting the company.
- Christopher Plummer plays Rudyard Kipling in the film. Kipling, as a character in his own works, first appeared in George Stevens’ “Gunga Din” (1939), played by Reginald Sheffield. Kipling as a film character can also be seen in Irving Rappers’ “The Adventures of Mark Twain” (1944), portrayed by Paul Scardon.
- Rudyard Kipling's story, “The Man Who Would Be King,” was based on the real story of Josiah Harlan, the first American to set foot on Afghan territory. Born in Pennsylvania, the naturally adventurous Harlan traveled to Afghanistan in the early 19th century. Emir Dost Mohammad Khan of Kabul, noticing Harlan's military talent, made him commander-in-chief of the entire Afghan army.
- Director John Huston and producer John Foreman chose Morocco for filming because the country features a vast number of different peoples and languages, including Arabic, African, French, and Berber. In addition, it was possible to film various landscapes, including deserts, plains, forests, hills, lush countryside, and mountains.
- It took visual effects creator Albert Whitlock only six hours to paint the interiors of the Sikandergul fortress.
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