Out of MGM, Kim is directed by Victor Saville and adapted from the Rudyard Kipling novel by Helen Deutsch, Leon Gordon (producer as well) and Richard Schayer. It stars Errol Flynn, Dean Stockwell, Paul Lukas & Robert Douglas. It's shot in Technicolor by William V. Skall and André Previn provides the musical score. Locations for the shoot were Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, India, and some work was done at Alabama Hills near Lone Pine in California.
It's all very colourful, with performances from the cast to match, and the photography is at times gorgeous, but excitement is sporadic and threaded together by long periods of tedium. The story is a good one, tho the political correctness brigade would like to see the film given a Viking burial. Set during the British Raj, it tells how a young orphan boy named Kim (Stockwell) had adventures whilst becoming a spy for the Empire. The people he meets, good and bad, and his involvement with a Russian plot to seize India. Stockwell does very well in the lead role, and Flynn offers up some flamboyance. But it's ultimately too long at nearly two hours because the narrative is far too episodic. 4/10
It's all very colourful, with performances from the cast to match, and the photography is at times gorgeous, but excitement is sporadic and threaded together by long periods of tedium. The story is a good one, tho the political correctness brigade would like to see the film given a Viking burial. Set during the British Raj, it tells how a young orphan boy named Kim (Stockwell) had adventures whilst becoming a spy for the Empire. The people he meets, good and bad, and his involvement with a Russian plot to seize India. Stockwell does very well in the lead role, and Flynn offers up some flamboyance. But it's ultimately too long at nearly two hours because the narrative is far too episodic. 4/10