This week we celebrate February by selecting a film from the list of 1975 movies submitted by the host. “The Man Who Would be King” had been suggested a number of times but it has finally ascended to the throne for this week’s Lambcast.
For those of you who are not familiar, the film is based on a Rudyard Kipling story, and in this telling, Kipling himself is a character, played by a hard to recognize Christopher Plummer. The film features the one time that Michael Caine and Sean Connery shared starring roles in a film together [their separate scenes in “A Bridge too Far” not withstanding]. The two good friends have a tremendous screen chemistry that was used to great advantage by director John Huston.
We had five people on the show, three of whom were passionate about the film, but two of the Lambs were separated from the flock by issues of tone and storytelling. No one disliked the movie but some uncertainties were unearthed and discussed at length. There is even a suggestion that this Michael Caine performance might be part of the problem and some interesting theories came up as a result.
Caine and Connery are itinerant ex-soldiers in Her Majesty’s Army in India during the 1880s. They hatch a plan to loot the distant country of Kafiristan and in the process make themselves kings. This is an adventure story with plenty of humor and violence, maybe that accounts for some of the tone issues that one of our podcasters had with the film.
James Wilson of Blogging by Cinema Light, had a lot of history to share regarding the gestation of the dream project from director Huston. Will Slater from “Exploding Helicopter” was quick to argue for points he found to be troublesome and Nick Rehak was enjoying this as a first time watch. Matthew Simpson from Awesome Friday! shares some Fatherly Connections along with Richard of their memories of the film. There was also a game! The Exit Question this week Focused on the Best and Worst Performances from our two leads. There was a bit of a gap in opinions but surprisingly strong agreement on some selections. See if you can pick out the winners and losers from these images:
Introductions
Discussion 3:10
Co-Star or No Star-The Game 1:06:36
Exit Question Best and Worst 1:18:38
James Blogging By Cinema Light
Will Exploding Helicopter
Matthew Awesome Friday!
Richard KAMAD
The show can be found, of course, via iTunes – just do a search for “LAMBcast.” Also, I always post a link to the show on the LAMBcast’s Facebook page, and there’s a player there if you’d like to listen online. Find the show here:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/lambcast/episodes/2023-02-13T11_52_38-08_00
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