Bryan, remember the "Man Who Would Be King"?

[winterbadger]

Check it out!

from the BBC

A Hollywood actor who starred in horror film Dawn Of The Dead has found he is prince of the Afghan province of Ghor.

Scott Reiniger, who appeared in the 1978 movie, is the great, great, great grandson of Josiah Harlan, the first American to set foot in Afghanistan.

As a result of a treaty Harlan signed, his heirs are granted the title Prince of Ghor in perpetuity.

(snip)

[Harlan's mission for Dost Muhammed Khan, emir of Kabul] formed the basis for Rudyard Kipling's book The Man Who Would Be King, which, in a further Hollywood twist, was made as a film starring Sean Connery.



Daniel Dravot: In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find - 'D'you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty.

Peachy Carnehan: Now, the problem is, how to divide five Afghans from three mules and have two Englishmen left over.

Billy Fish: I know you, you English persons. Take off hat to woman, give name to dog.

Daniel Dravot: When we're done with you, you'll be able to stand up and slaughter your enemies like civilized men.

Daniel Dravot: You are going to become soldiers. A soldier does not think. He only obeys. Do you really think that if a soldier thought twice he'd give his life for queen and country? Not bloody likely.


If you've never seen it, do. It's a wonderful movie, an excellent adaptation (for it is not an exact rendition) of Kipling's short story about pride and imperialism and comradeship--some wonderful acting by Sean Connery and Michael Caine and one of the first, though not the first screen appearances by that marvelous Punjabi actor Saeed "my dear boy!" Jaffrey (god, I love that man! :-).

Comments

Take off hat to woman, give name to dog.

[robbysmom.livejournal.com]

Robby says:

"right, dogs already have names, after all: you humans just can't understand what we're saying in bark langauge. Luckily, I can understand enough of *your* langauge to make do. And you feed me.

[balzacq.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Would he get to live in Sekanda-Gul?

(That's *still* one of my favorite movies, which I happen to own on videotape.)

[winterbadger]

"The Minstrel Boy," from whence comes the melody for the hymn that Peachy (or is it Daniel?) sings ("The son of God goes forth to war..."), is one of the favourites in our reenacting unit. One of the other privates (a retired Special Forces officer) and I used to sing it when we were marching (or in formation, if the officers left us alone too long...) It's Irish, and I forget whether it's period or not, but it's fun. :-)

[ladyjillian.livejournal.com]

That was Keith's and my favorite movie--we learned how to light the matches for our cigars by striking them together. There was a bit of a flap on the radio a few months ago when some official in the UK referred to Kaffiristan as 'fictional' and the Kaffiristanis got pissed off. I have to admit I'd always assumed it was.

[winterbadger]

There was a bit of a flap on the radio a few months ago when some official in the UK referred to Kaffiristan as 'fictional' and the Kaffiristanis got pissed off. I have to admit I'd always assumed it was.

Wow! So had I; I just assumed Kipling took "kaffir" and added the "-stan".

Nuristan (noorĬstăn´) [Persian,=land of light or the enlightened], region on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush, NE Afghanistan, bordered on the E by Pakistan. Formerly called Kafiristan [land of the infidels], it is inhabited by an ethnically distinctive people (numbering about 60,000), who practiced animism until their forcible conversion to Islam in 1895-96.

more at http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/N/Nuristan.asp

Forcibly converted to Islam in the 19th century! Yikes!