Kim - Secret Service in India

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Movie
German title Kim - Secret Service in India
Original title Rudyard Kipling's Kim
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1950
length 113 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Victor Saville
script Leon Gordon ,
Helen Deutsch ,
Richard Schayer
production Leon Gordon
music André Previn
camera William V. Skall
cut George Boemler
occupation
synchronization

Kim - Secret Service in India (original title: Rudyard Kipling's Kim ) is an American adventure film with Errol Flynn from 1950. Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim from 1901 served as a literary model .

action

India around 1885: The English orphan boy Kim lives on the street and has to beg in disguise as a local in order to survive. One day he joins the horse dealer Mahbub Ali, who spies for the British secret service. He should find out more about an imminent rebellion against the British-led Indian government. Allegedly the Russians also have their hands in the game. Kim is now supposed to deliver secret messages for Mahbub Ali as the delivery boy. He also meets a Buddhist scholar, a so-called Lama , who has come to India from Tibet to find a river whose water he hopes will be spiritually purified. Kim and the lama become friends and travel together. Kim also took the opportunity to present an important document to Colonel Creighton, chief of British intelligence. The paper shows where the rebels want to attack the British.

When it turns out that Kim's father was a white soldier named Kimball O'Hara, the lama decides that Kim should go to school with his own kind. Kim ends up attending St. Xavier's British Military School, where iron discipline is the order of the day. One day he sneaks off to find Mahbub Ali. On the way he learns that Mahbub Ali's confidante Abul is planning an assassination attempt on Mahbub Ali together with a rebel. However, Kim can warn his friend in time and thus save his life. During the summer vacation, Kim is trained as an agent. As such, he is supposed to convey messages between Colonel Creighton and agent Hurree Chunder. Chunder has now discovered that two Russians are posing as geologists and are secretly collecting military strategic data over a mountain pass. When Kim wants to give Creighton's answer to Chunder at the agreed meeting point, he finds Chunder murdered.

Kim tries to get the Russians to hire him as a servant while he pretends to be the Lama as his senile companion. However, their cover is exposed. The lama is knocked down and by means of hypnosis one wants to get valuable information out of Kim. Mahbub Ali, who was dispatched after Chunder's death became known, meanwhile sneaks into the Russian camp. With Kim's support, he succeeds in incapacitating both the Russians and the approaching rebels. Later, when the lama regains consciousness, he advises Kim to follow a nonviolent path in life. When he thinks he has finally found his sacred river, it collapses and dies.

background

The La Martiniere school in Lucknow , a location for the film

MGM wanted to film Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim in 1938 with Robert Taylor and the child star Freddie Bartholomew . However, no suitable script could be produced, which is why production was discontinued at that time. In the early 1940s Mickey Rooney was supposed to play the orphan boy Kim, but script problems again prevented the project from being realized. It wasn't until 1949 that production started again. The film was then shot in the Californian Alabama Hills and in the Sierra Nevada , which served as the Himalayan backdrop, as well as in the Indian cities of Bundi , Jaipur , Lucknow and Red Fort .

The world premiere of Kim - Secret Service in India took place on December 7, 1950 in New York instead. The adventure film was released in Germany on January 14, 1952. The German television premiere took place on December 24, 1975 on ZDF .

Reviews

For the Lexicon of International Films , Kim - Secret Service in India was "a varied film adaptation of the novel by Rudyard Kipling with carefully measured tension". Prisma describes Victor Saville's film as "a genre work typical of the 1950s that is also suitable for children". Cinema called the film a "children's classic, exciting and exotic-colorful".

German version

The German dubbed version was created in 1951 in the MGM dubbing studio in Berlin.

role actor Voice actor
Mahbub Ali Errol Flynn Wolfgang Lukschy
Kim Dean Stockwell Wilfried Schaelicke
lama Paul Lukas Walter Werner
Colonel Creighton Robert Douglas Axel Monjé
Hurree Chunder Cecil Kellaway Clemens Hasse
Lurgan Sahib Arnold Moss Alfred Balthoff
Hassan Bey / Narrator Richard Hale Hans Emons / Arthur Schröder
Russian Roman Toporov Clemens Hasse
Russian Ivan Triesault Erich Poremski
Thorpe Hamilton Camp Ernst Jacobi
Conspirators Henry Corden Walter Altenkirch
Dr. Bronson Walter Kingsford Erich Dunskus
Clerk Francis McDonald Walter Bluhm
Woman with baby Movita Tilly Lauenstein
Abul Frank Richards Franz Nicklisch

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kim - Secret Service in India. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 2, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ cf. prisma.de
  3. ↑ cf. cinema.de
  4. ↑ cf. synchrondatenbank.de