Kith and Kim

When I was in grade school, I won some kind of contest, and the prize was a paperback copy of Kipling’s Kim. Since I was more into astronauts and death rays, I wasn’t too impressed, but I read it anyway. However, I hadn’t seen the movie Kim (1950) until now.

It stars Dean Stockwell as Kim, the son of an Irish soldier orphaned in India. To avoid the orphanage and classes, he runs the streets, doing odd jobs for the underworld, including Errol Flynn. He plays an Indian horse trader who seemed to be called Ma Bubbali (but is actually Mabub Ali). I am going to assume he is actually an Englishman disguised as an Indian, because otherwise I will go mad.

Flynn gets Stockwell to run errands for him, as he is a spy for the English, rooting out Russian plots to destabilize the Empire. Meanwhile, Stockwell meets a Tibetan Buddhist monk - Paul Lukas. And why shouldn’t a Tibetan monk speak English with a Hungarian accent? So Kim apprentices with the monk, begging for him and traveling throughout India while secretly carrying messages for the British.

OK, two bad things and two good things:

• The brown face and colonialist racism is not good. But it could be worse - This is Kipling, after all.
• A lot of this was filmed in India, so there is some good spectacle, including elephants.
• The overall “Adventure” feel of this is a little weak, except the climax - a fight in the Himalayas.
• The love of Kim for his monk touched me as a Buddhist.

For me, the terrible politics balance out the mild pleasures and I found this slight but enjoyable. I don’t know if you’d agree.