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Caine and Connery together at last heading out to the sort of land perfect for The Man Who Would Be King |
Director: John Huston
Cast: Sean Connery (Daniel Dravot), Michael Caine (Peachy
Carnehan), Christopher Plummer (Rudyard Kipling), Saeed Jaffrey (Billy Fish),
Shakira Caine (Roxanne), Doghmi Larbi (Oootah), Jack May (District
Commissioner)
A glorious rip-roaring adventure, The Man Who Would Be King is exactly the sort of deeply enjoyable
Sunday afternoon viewing you could expect to see playing out on a Bank Holiday
weekend on the BBC. Which is enough to make you often overlook that this is
quite a dark, even subversive film in amongst all the fun.
Adapted from Rudyard Kipling’s short story, the story
follows Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery) and “Peachy” Carnahan (Michael Caine):
cashiered NCOs from the British Empire, bumming their way round the Raj in the
1880s, picking pockets and scamming everyone from local rajahs to British
commissioners. But their dream is to travel to the distant land of Kafiristan,
a country almost unknown in the West, where they hope to help a ruler conquer
the land, overthrow him, clean the country out and head back to the West.
Arriving after a difficult journey, their plan goes well – but is put out of joint
when Dravot is mistaken for a god…
Strange to think that John Huston had this project in
development for so long that his original intended stars were Clark Gable and
Humphrey Bogart. After the project faltered for so long that those two stars
sadly died, Huston shopped it around to most actorly double bills around
Hollywood. Finally he settled on his ideal choices for these very British
scoundrels: Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Fortunately, Newman took one read
of the script and essentially said “John they’ve got to be British”. Connery and Caine were suggested – the rest is
history.
And just as well they were suggested, as the film’s principal
delight is the gorgeous interplay between the two star actors, happily
embracing the film as if they knew they’d never get to bounce off each other
together on screen again. This is one of the warmest, most genuine feeling
friendships between two characters captured on film, Dravot and Peachy are so
clearly heterosexual life partners that they are willing (after much bickering)
to forgive each other virtually anything. On top of which, the two actors play
around with each other like old-school stage comedians, matching each subtle
raise of an eyebrow with a wry half smile.
Connery is of course perfect as the man succumbing to
hubris, his Scots burr spot on for Dravot’s slightly pompous “front man”, while
Caine excels as the more sly, fast-talking Peachy. The finest moments of the
film feature these two interacting, from performing long cons, to hysterical
laughter when death feels near on a snowswept mountain, to the final
(emotionally stirring) moments of sacrifice and support.
Because yes, with the film opening with a decrepit Peachy
recounting his story to Kipling (an engagingly plummy performance from Plummer
– no pun intended) you just know this little boys’-own adventure in the East
isn’t going to end well for our heroes. Huston, however, still manages to make
the whole thing feel like an excellent jaunt, even though the devastation is
clearly signposted from the start.
Huston’s film is shot with a sweeping, low-key excellence –
Huston was a master at putting the camera in place and then basically not
getting in the way of the story. He totally identifies from the start that it’s
the relationship between the two leads that is the real emotional and dramatic
force of the film and never allows anything to obstruct that. He’s smart enough
to also get a bit of social commentary in there, around imperialism and the
entitlement that means these lower-class Brits feel that they should have their
share of other people’s counties. But these themes never unbalance the picture.
Instead they counterbalance it – however much we enjoy the leads cheek and
charm, we can’t forget that in many ways they are immoral conmen, who represent
some of the worst riches stealing excesses of the British Empire.
The slow spiralling of Dravot into the sort of man who wants
to stay behind and build a dynasty in Kafiristan works extraordinarily well.
Connery perfectly suggests the ego and love of attention that motivates many of
the actions of this natural showman. From the first battle, when an arrow fails
to kill him, we see him slowly realise and enjoy the implications of this fame.
His rather touchingly childlike pleasure in dispensing justice (even if Peachy
has to quietly correct his maths in the middle of one case) and spinning
fantasies about sitting on equal terms of Queen Victoria don’t turn him into a
monster or an egotist, but more of a kid who is running before he can walk.
It’s the sense of fun that keeps you watching – and also
what gives the final few moments their emotional force and power. It works
because it never harps on the darker social commentary it contains, about the
corruption of British rule, and the greed of these buccaneering adventurers. Superbly
acted – as well as the leads, Saeed Jaffrey is very good as a Gurkha soldier
who acts as translator for our two con-men – and extremely well filmed, with the
sweep and grandeur of India coming across strongly in Huston’s careful
camerawork, this is a hugely enjoyable film about friendship that has all the
fun and vibrance of a con film wrapped in an epic adventure.
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