Man Who Would King - brief

Rating: 7/10 (25 October 2014)

Big time, old fashioned adventure film based on Kipling. Caine and Connery perfect as greedy scoundrels who trek from India to Kafiristan. Intend to hoodwink the natives, seize the treasure, return to England dripping wealth. Oh, the best laid plans . . . Stunning photography (shot in Morocco's mountains), magical sense of time and place. Bit slow at times (Star Wars came out two years later, Raiders Lost Ark in '81.), and felt quaint when it came out. Noteworthy for the lack of gore or gratuitous violence.
In the brief documentary, director John Huston commented that he had hoped to shoot this years earlier with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart, but both died. Thinking about it, this could have been made in the 40s with Errol Flynn and David Niven.