THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
Connery. Caine. Classic
“NOW LISTEN TO me, you benighted muckers. We’re going to teach you soldiering. The world’s noblest profession. When we’re done with you you’ll be able to slaughter your enemies like civilised men!” So barks Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery) to the ramshackle would-be warriors of Kafiristan, a remote region of Afghanistan where he and fellow ex-soldier Peachy Carnahan (Michael Caine) are seeking their fortune. “Good soldiers don’t think, they just obey,” continues Dravot, eyes aglint above mutton-chop moustache. “You think, if a man thought twice, he’d die for his country? Not bloody likely! He wouldn’t go near the battlefield! One look at your foolish faces... tells me you’re going to be crack troops.”
The Man Who Would Be King has pithier lines, but none that so adeptly sum up the skewed, romantic cynicism of the film, which manages to be both criticism and celebration of the British Empire, its spirit of adventure and soul of corruption.
It’s 1885 and, prior to this, Danny and Peachy have been grifting their way around India, demobbed but not demoralised. But then a cheeky blackmail attempt is foiled and they are threatened with deportation by the district commissioner, whose contempt for them is met with Peachy’s own ire. “Detriments you call us? Detriments?” he snorts. “Well, I want to remind you it was detriments like us that built this bloody Empire.” It was, indeed — and it’s an act of sly brilliance that our leads’ next scheme is so nakedly criminal and yet so obviously an echo of how the British Empire expanded. They intend to trek to Kafiristan, crossing cliffs and canyons, and there use their soldiering skills to conquer the locals, before leading them to loot the next settlement. Conquer the divide, then divide and conquer. This is explained, with glee, to the local correspondent of the Northern Star: one Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer), a fellow Freemason (that ‘secret’ society will become a key plot point). The Kipling connection provides a surprisingly effective framing device, as their adventures are largely later recounted to him by Peachy, with a mixture of misty eyes and regret. It was Kipling’s short story, of course, upon which Gladys Hill and John Huston based their screenplay — the final of several written during a 20-year gestation process. The Man Who Would Be King was Huston’s 29th picture as director. It was supposed to be his 13th. Having finished Moby Dick (1956), he cast Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart as the leads when, as he recalls in his memoir An Open Book, “Bogie got sick and died.” Five years later he considered it once more, after making The Misfits, with Gable. “I was trying to cast the other part when Gable died. I put
it away again.” It would remain untouched for a decade.
Watching the film now, the buddy banter, wry comedy and derring-do feel very reminiscent of another, probably more famous classic: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969). That is no accident. For when Huston resurrected the project again it was to star Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The latter had worked with Huston on 1973’s The Mackintosh Man and “in our mutual guilt… [we] were eager to do something we could hold our heads up about afterwards.”
Newman loved the script but — a film fan first, a movie star second — thought that the parts really required British actors. “For Christ’s sake, John,” he told the director, “Get Connery and Caine!” It was a perfect partnership.
Connery was at his peak — post Bond, making interesting choices, freed of the obligations of being an icon, but still carrying its swagger, charm and sex appeal. It’s not hard to see why the people of Kafiristan come to believe this magnificent man is a god. And Caine, despite his caricature as a chirpy cockney, always plays intelligence well — especially if it can be fuelled by resentment. He’s the pragmatic, perceptive partner in this military marriage. Huston loved them. “Together they worked up each scene so well beforehand that all I had to decide was how best to shoot it.” And, boy, doesn’t he shoot it. The film boasts widescreen majesty, but it’s also a masterclass in intimate staging — how to convey emotion through behaviour and blocking (the scene where Peachy and Danny decide to part, separated by a veil, and ego, is quite brilliant). And as much as Huston relishes spectacle and sentiment he also subtly undercuts it. After the final battle, Danny’s valedictory song
— a rousing reworking of the hymn The Son Of God Goes Forth To War, which recurs throughout Maurice Jarre’s lush score — is cut short. Huston, who had made documentaries in World War II, knew death was no respecter of timing.
The Man Who Would Be King is a film of legends and truth. “The picture has its faults, I suppose,” reflected Huston, later in life. “But who gives a damn? It plunges recklessly ahead. It swims toward the cataract.”
And it still reigns. NEV PIERCE
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING IS OUT NOW ON DVD