The Man Who Would Be King

[LouGoncey]

I read a ton of books, but I have and will always be a movie fanatic.


And the one movie that makes me jump up and down and scream. "This is D&D!" is John Houston's THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING.


Two soldiers of to a faraway land in search of gold & girls -- one is mistakingly thought to be a God. Hilarity ensues.


Just perfect...

[jmccann]

I saw that years ago and remember enjoying it. I might watch it again (puts on mental list, soon to be forgotten....).

[Deleted]

"Go on, CUT, you buggers!"

[Mighty Darci]

I looked this up and see that it was adapted from

"The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) is a novella by Rudyard Kipling. It is about two British adventurers in British India who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan. The story was inspired by the exploits of James Brooke, an Englishman who became the first White Rajah of Sarawak in Borneo; and by the travels of American adventurer Josiah Harlan, who was granted the title Prince of Ghor in perpetuity for himself and his descendants. It incorporates a number of other factual elements such as locating the story in eastern Afghanistan's Kafiristan and the European-like appearance of many of Kafiristan's Nuristani people, and an ending modelled on explorer Adolf Schlagintweit.[1]



The story was first published in The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (Volume Five of the Indian Railway Library, published by A. H. Wheeler & Co of Allahabad in 1888). It also appeared in Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories in 1895, and in numerous later editions of that collection. It has been adapted for other media a number of times.

The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 Technicolor film adapted from the Rudyard Kipling novella of the same title. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey, and Christopher Plummer as Kipling (giving a name to the novella's anonymous narrator). The film follows two rogue ex-non-commissioned officers of the Indian Army who set off from late 19th-century British India in search of adventure and end up as kings of Kafiristan.

Now I want to see this too!

[ffilz]

It's a good watch. Christopher Kubasik also recommended it for Traveller inspiration.