Kim | |
---|---|
Based on | Kim by Rudyard Kipling |
Written by | Leslie Seth-Smith |
Directed by | John Davies |
Starring | Ravi Sheth Peter O'Toole Bryan Brown John Rhys-Davies Nadira Julian Glover |
Music by | Marc Wilkinson |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producers | David Conroy Jean Walter |
Cinematography | Michael Reed |
Editor | John Shirley |
Running time | 150 minutes |
Production company | London Film Productions |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | 16 May 1984 |
Network | ITV |
Release | 26 December 1984 |
Kim is a 1984 British television film directed by John Davies and based on Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel Kim . The film stars Peter O'Toole, Bryan Brown, John Rhys-Davies, Nadira, Julian Glover, Jalal Agha and Ravi Sheth in the title role.
Kim (Ravi Sheth) is a 13-year-old street orphan in Lahore of the 19th century (1894). Kim thinks he is native, but he's actually of British origin, the son of an Irish soldier and an unknown mother (unlike the novel on which it is based, Kim's mother is not portrayed as Irish, but it is made clear that Kim is white). Kim is hired as a guide by a travelling Tibetan lama (Peter O'Toole) on a search for a river where Budda hurled an arrow, turning it into a place of redemption. When he finds his father's regiment and the British military discover his origins and his real name, Kimball O'Hara, he's placed in an English college. His nature, however, is opposed to the regimentation expected for the son of a British soldier, and he rebels. His familiarity with Indian life and his ability to pass as an Indian child allows him to function as a spy for the British as they attempt to thwart revolution and invasion of India. Rejoining his holy man, Kim is trained by an Englishman called Babu (John Rhys Davies) to become a British spy and receives orders from a British Colonel (Julian Glover) who assigns him a risky mission in the "Great Game", the behind-the-scenes struggle between Imperial Britain and Russia for supremacy in Afghanistan and Central Asia. He also befriends an astute Afghan horse-dealer named Mahbub Ali (Bryan Brown), a British Secret Service agent, who helps him with his task.
Filming took place in October 1983. [1]
Ravi Sheth, 15, was a Bombay resident whose father is Indian and mother is American. He moved to India at the age of 2 after being born in Milwaukee and his only previous acting experience was as Prince Charming, in a Grade 7 production of Rapunzel). "He has been an utter delight," Peter O'Toole said, "an absolute joy to work with." [2]
The story is set in several locations filmed in India, as the Northern frontier, Lahore barracks, Bunar, Umbella barracks, Delhi, Shaharampoor and Indian mountains near the Himalayas for the final scenes of the fighting against Russian spies. There was studio filming in London. [3]
The screenplay was essentially close to Kipling's original; much more so than the 1950 movie with Errol Flynn, except for an added subplot about the love of a deserting Scottish soldier with an Indian girl. The ending is also slightly different from the original novel, and some anachronistic snipes at the British Raj were inserted. The casting was also subject to controversy, with white actors playing local characters.[ citation needed ]
The New York Times said "the plot rambles rather confusingly" and O'Toole "has a tendency to lurch about like some tipsy schoolmaster, but even he seems charmed by young Mr. Sheth" and that the film "still works nicely as family entertainment." [4]
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the people, culture, and varied religions of India. "The book presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road." The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel popularized the phrase and idea of the Great Game.
The Ruling Class is a 1972 British black comedy film. It is an adaptation of Peter Barnes' satirical 1968 stage play The Ruling Class, which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman who inherits a peerage. The film co-stars Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Coral Browne, Harry Andrews, Carolyn Seymour, James Villiers and Arthur Lowe. It was produced by Jules Buck and directed by Peter Medak.
John Rhys-Davies is a Welsh actor best known for portraying Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Sallah in the Indiana Jones franchise. He has received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, with one win, and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO, OBE was a British novelist and regular officer of the Indian Army.
Julian Wyatt Glover is an English actor with many stage, television, and film roles. Classically trained, he is a recipient of the Laurence Olivier Award and has performed many times for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
John Lockwood Kipling was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling.
Peter Stuart Hopkirk was a British journalist, author and historian who wrote six books about the British Empire, Russia and Central Asia.
The Lahore Museum is a museum located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded in 1865 at a smaller location and opened in 1894 at its current location on The Mall in Lahore during the British colonial period, Lahore Museum is Pakistan's largest museum, as well as one of its most visited ones.
The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 adventure film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's 1888 novella. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey and Christopher Plummer as Kipling. The film follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who set off from late 19th century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king.
James Ronald Gordon Copeland, known professionally as James Cosmo, is a Scottish actor. Known for his character work, he has played supporting roles in films such as Highlander (1986), Braveheart (1995), Trainspotting (1996), Troy (2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Ben-Hur (2016), and Wonder Woman (2017). On television, he appeared as Father Kellan Ashby on the third season of Sons of Anarchy (2010), Jeor Mormont on HBO's Game of Thrones (2011–2013), Farder Coram in the BBC series His Dark Materials (2019), and Luka Gocharov on the third season of Amazon Prime's Jack Ryan (2022). Cosmo appeared as a contestant on the nineteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2017, finishing in fourth place.
Paul Rhys is a Welsh theatre, television and film actor.
The British Empire has often been portrayed in fiction. Originally such works described the Empire because it was a contemporary part of life; nowadays fictional references are also frequently made in a steampunk context.
Kim is a 1950 adventure film made in Technicolor by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Victor Saville and produced by Leon Gordon from a screenplay by Helen Deutsch, Leon Gordon and Richard Schayer, based on the classic 1901 novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling.
Plain Tales from the Hills is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new."
Anthony Harvey was an English filmmaker who began his career as a teenage actor, was a film editor in the 1950s, and moved into directing in the mid-1960s. Harvey had fifteen film credits as an editor, and he directed thirteen films, the second of which, The Lion in Winter (1968), earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. Harvey's career is also notable for his recurring work with a number of leading actors and directors including Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Richard Attenborough, Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston, Nick Nolte, the Boulting Brothers, Anthony Asquith, Bryan Forbes and Stanley Kubrick. He died in November 2017 at the age of 87.
The Civil and Military Gazette was a daily English-language newspaper founded in 1872 in British India. It was published from Lahore, Simla and Karachi, some times simultaneously, until its closure in 1963. The archives are owned by Lahore-based businessman Humayun Naseer Shaikh and have been digitized by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Citizens Archive of Pakistan.
Soldiers Three is a 1951 American adventure film based upon an element of several short stories by Rudyard Kipling featuring the same trio of British soldiers, portrayed in the film by Stewart Granger, Robert Newton, and Cyril Cusack. The picture was directed by Tay Garnett.
Civvies is a six-part thriller first broadcast on BBC1 from 22 September to 27 October 1992. The series was written by Lynda La Plante - her first writing contribution for the BBC, after being poached by the BBC following the success of Prime Suspect. The series focuses on Frank Dillon, a former Army soldier who finds life outside the army tougher than being in it - and slowly falls under the power of east end gangster Barry Newman, who is looking to hire a trained hitman. The complete series was released on DVD on 3 June 2013 on Acorn Media UK.
Kim is an adventure role-playing video game developed by British independent developer The Secret Games Company, based on the novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. The game allows the player to take control of the novel's young hero, the teenage beggar Kim, as he begins his practical training as a field agent working for British intelligence in "The Great Game". Along the way, Kim meets an aged Tibetan lama and adopts him as his traveling companion, joining his search for a spiritual river of healing. Carry secret messages for Mahbub Ali the charismatic horse trader and undercover British agent, dicker for food with street vendors, collect maps to speed your travel, and experience the wonder of the "te-rain" that connects British India from Lahore to Benares.