John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King is terrific spectacle
Itching for a film ripe with adventure, comedy, delusions of grandeur? Lucky you. It just so happens I’ve got just such a treat for this week’s Throwback Thursday edition.
“With great power comes great responsibility”
– Voltaire
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
– John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
Think about those two quotations for a minute: How many times have you seen the themes borne out in one form or another? In how many films? And books? And plays? You can apply them to any number of television programs past and present, regardless of the year. (For me? One of the first things that comes to mind when I see those quotes is Warner Bros. cartoons, especially ones featuring Bugs Bunny. Not Bugs as protagonist falling prey to the themes but his many nemeses.)
Hell … for that matter, how many times have you seen or read about them played out in real life? Because they’re everywhere, through the likes of moguls and political figures and various others who keep the news and the tabloids hopping month to month.
Time and again, we’ve witnessed both quotations laid out and here they are once more in The Man Who Would Be King. And in this incarnation they’re put forth grandly and very well indeed.
Adapted from the short story by Rudyard Kipling, two ex-officers of the Indian Army (Michael Caine as Peachy Carnehan and Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot) make a pact to seek their fortunes in far away Kafiristan (an area of Afghanistan) during 19th-century British India. Their intentions are to conquer local tribes with the ultimate goal of becoming kings of all the lands through good old fashioned English know how. After all, two British smugglers and con men can surely outwit the primitive savages of Afghanistan, right?
Fast forward: They do. Continue reading 'John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King is terrific spectacle' »