Kim
               
Director: Victor Saville
Year: 1950
Rating: 7.0
A few months back I read Searching for Kim by Peter Hopkirk. Initially, my intention had been just to read Hopkirk’s book. He is a well-known essayist, historian and traveler and wrote The Great Game about the rivalry between Russia and Great Britain over the Indian sub-continent. But not surprisingly, considering the title of his book, it soon occurred to me that reading his book without having ever read Kim made no sense. So, I was able to pick up a copy of Kim at a local bookstore and immersed myself in the book expecting the worst but loving it almost immediately.



It is a wonderfully descriptive narrative about India during Kipling’s time. Now Kipling is persona non-grata for proudly being a part of the British Raj, but really what does one expect? He was a product of his time and his upbringing. He was born in Bombay in 1865 to parents who lived there, his father was a professor and his mother a socialite. He went back to England for school but returned to India in 1882 to work on a newspaper in Lahore. He soon began writing short stories about life in The British Raj and though he left India in 1889 never to return he continued to write about India all his life. It clearly enthralled him and wove its spirit into him and his knowledge of the Indian people, the Brits living there and the land is enormous. This love of India is readily apparent in Kim, as the young orphan boy of Irish ancestry left to live alone on the streets of Lahore is slowly drawn into the Great Game on the side of the British and travels throughout India either with his holy man or on his own. The Hopkirk book is a perfect companion as the author follows in Kim’s footsteps and informs the reader of what these places are like today, throws in historical context and identifies the real people in Kipling’s life that the characters were modeled after. Apparently, an Indian author wrote a sequel to Kim in which Kim deserts the British Raj to fight for Indian independence and dies at the massacre at Amritsar. No thanks.



And now I finally got around to the 1950 film with Errol Flynn as Mahbub Ali, Paul Lukas as the Holy Man and Dean Stockwell as Kim. It is a terrific Technicolor adventure for the whole family. A good chunk of it was filmed in India and parts in California but trying to figure out which is which is not easy. The parts that are clearly India such as the British school at Lucknow are stunning. Apparently, all the scenes with Flynn in them were shot in California with Indian backdrops behind him. Maybe they didn't trust Flynn to stay sober in India.



It follows the book reasonably closely with Kim becoming the chela to the Buddhist Holy Man who is searching for a river that was created when Buddha shot an arrow into the sky and where it landed a river sprung up. Their journey takes them on the Grand Trunk Road that cuts across much of India and the streams of people of all types and religions is fascinating. Kim is a friend to Red Beard aka Mahbub Ali who is a secret agent for the British and he brings Kim into the Great Game by using him to deliver messages and sending him to spy school. The Russians, bastards that they are, have paid off various tribes in Afghanistan to invade India. We are of course expected to root for the Brits. When this film was made, Britain had lost India three years earlier in 1947 much to the chagrin of Churchill. But Raj films had been popular for decades in Hollywood and would continue to be for a few decades more - but it becomes a little harder as time passes to root for the Imperialists - till the bugles and the bagpipes blow and then you can't help it. It is MGM quality but definitely made with children in mind and so keeps it safe and mainly bloodless.