Product Details

• Actors: Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Saeed Jaffrey, Doghmi Larbi
• Directors: John Huston
• Writers: John Huston, Gladys Hill, Rudyard Kipling
• Producers: John Foreman, William Hill
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, Special Edition, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: June 17, 1997
• Run Time: 129 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (186 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304457359
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,702 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie--and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making them kings. It's a rollicking tale, an epic satire of imperialism, and the good-natured repartee shared by Caine and Connery is pure gold. In today's screen adventures, humor is usually imposed on the material by a writer or director trying to make some kind of cleverly self-aware comment ("Hey, we know it's a movie!"), but that sort of jokiness can create so much ironic distance that it pushes the audience right out of the picture. Huston lets the humor emerge naturally from the characters, for whom we wind up caring more deeply than we ever expected. --Jim Emerson

Amazon.com

A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie--and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making them kings. It's a rollicking tale, an epic satire of imperialism, and the good-natured repartee shared by Caine and Connery is pure gold. In today's screen adventures, humor is usually imposed on the material by a writer or director trying to make some kind of cleverly self-aware comment ("Hey, we know it's a movie!"), but that sort of jokiness can create so much ironic distance that it pushes the audience right out of the picture. Huston lets the humor emerge naturally from the characters, for whom we wind up caring more deeply than we ever expected. --Jim Emerson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great great film, so so DVD - with one startling omission, October 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Man Who Would Be King (DVD)

This is, of course, a great film, with every aspect of what makes a great film fully exploited. But I did discover something strange on the DVD - there is an entire scene missing. After Sean Connery falls from the bridge, instead of the process shot that shows him falling in slow-motion and the crown falling from his head (which is in every version of the film I've ever seen) the scene dissolves to Christopher Plummer listening to the final words of Michael Caine's narration. What happened to the scene?? Why would it have been removed?? My only other quibble about the DVD is that the sound is not very full. It is an early release DVD so in subsequent releases they might address that issue, but PUT BACK THE MISSING SCENE!

127 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Huston is the real King !, March 3, 2003

By 

the wizard of uz (Studio City, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Would Be King (DVD)

He began with 'The Maltese Falcon' which one must admit is not too bad for a first film, don't you think?

Then for years he wanted to bring this adventure story by Kipling to the screen. How many years? Well, originally he had Bogie and Gable in mind for the leads, you do the math.

Fortunately for us, he eventually got the green light for his project.

He then found Peachy and Danny in Michael Caine and Sean Connery, movie stars who are also great actors-- of which there ain't many, folks---and who are perfectly cast in the roles.

Moreover, Caine and Connery had been friends for a long time and this undoubtedly helped bring to life the camaraderie between the misfit heroes.

It is the late 19th century and Danny and Peachy, formerly sergeants in Her Majesty's Army, find themselves stranded and penniless in India. Their ungrateful country has no further use for them, although their officers once called them heroes "We fought our way up the pass yard by bloody yard."

Now, bureocrats are running the show "with long skinny noses for looking down on you" and Danny and Peachy are considered 'undesirables'.

So they are faced with three choices: Go back to England and take jobs as a porters or something equally lower class and menial, stay in India and continue to live more or less as petty criminals, or. . .

Well, let's not give the plot away. Suffice it to say that when a reasonable Kipling (wonderfully played by Christopher Plummer) tries to dissuade them from their insane scheme, on the grounds that the odds against them are truly suicidal, Peachy dismisses his concerns with "Well, if a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"

--The Greek in question being Alexander the Great--

And yes, women as well as men will enjoy this great film. It's a not a "buddy movie", it's a classic.

Thank you, John Huston.

76 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A FIVE STAR CLASSIC on a 1 STAR DVD, May 17, 2006

By 

UncleTom - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Would Be King (DVD)

This was one of my favorites, and a "must have" in my DVD library. The story is still great,and the dialog between "Peachy" and "Daniel" is still among my favorites still.

But the DVD was dissappointing. The movie is split on two sides, and has to be flipped to view the remainder of the film.The DVD only has Dolby 1.0 Sound (Digital but MONO)and apparently very weak in the mix. Overall a better picture than my old worn VHS, but very weak audio overall.

The menu's and commentary are hard to read, and there were points in the movie where the transfer to DVD looked "jumpy".

More than disappointing presentation overall.

This deserves a "director's cut", or an audio remix to serve those of us who will cherish whatever copy we have, forever.