Kim. 1950. USA. Directed by Victor Saville. Screenplay by Leon Gordon, Helen Deutsch, Richard Schayer, from the novel by Rudyard Kipling. With Errol Flynn, Dean Stockwell, Paul Lukas, Thomas Gomez. 35mm. 113 min.
Despite softening features and reduced stamina from decades of heavy drinking, Flynn remained a star after World War II, though his unreliable work habits made producers reluctant to cast him in central roles. Kim, essentially a vehicle for MGM’s child star Dean Stockwell, uses Flynn almost as a recurring symbol of his former self—a figure out of romantic fantasy there to inspire a boy’s dreams. Adapted from a Rudyard Kipling novel, the film is grounded in a notion of racial role-playing that few would find acceptable today: Stockwell plays an anglo orphan in British India who is able to pass for a street urchin; Flynn, outfitted with odd red hair, is his hero and sometime protector, an Indian horse trader secretly working for the British secret service. Adding to the confusion is veteran performer Paul Lukas, his thick Hungarian accent undisguised, as the Tibetan lama who befriends the boy and offers spiritual guidance. Kim was photographed in Technicolor by William V. Skall, with substantial work on location in Rajasthan.