Trailer
Plot summary
Kim is an orphan boy in India in 1885, during the British Raj. He runs errands for Mahbub Ali, a horse trader who also serves the British as an agent. Mahbub Ali learns that the Russians are backing a plan to invade India from Afghanistan. Kim meets a Buddhist lama from Tibet who is searching for the River of the Arrow, whose waters he believes will cleanse him spiritually. Mahbub Ali arranges for Kim to become the lama's chela, or disciple, so the boy can carry a message to his superior, Colonel Creighton. Traveling the Grand Trunk Road together, the two grow to love each other.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kim (1950)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- MGM revived Kim in 1942 as a vehicle for Mickey Rooney, with Conrad Veidt as the Red Lama and Basil Rathbone, scripted by Leon Gordon and produced by Victor Saville; it was then shelved for fear of offending India and wartime ally Russia, the film's villains.
- The Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California doubled for the Khyber Pass in Kim, standing in for the Afghan border because the terrain looked like it, alongside location work in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, India.
- Doubles were used for Dean Stockwell and for the characters Huree Babu, Creighton Sahib and Lurgan Sahib, since those three parts had not been cast when the film was shot.
- The song "D'Ye Ken John Peel" was chosen as the musical leitmotif for scenes depicting the Presidency armies as predecessors of the British Indian Army.
