I remember reading and liking this book very much as a young otter, but I couldn't give you a plot point to save my life, so I have no idea how closely the movie follows the book. Gotta reread it, I guess...

But this is a good movie, although sort of mired in the late 40s-early 50s design (let's put the orange stripes, red dots and purple plaid TOGETHER!) sensibilities...technicolor was here, and it was happ'nin'.

Errol Flynn stars as the Indian Mahbub Ali, who is a spy for the British in the Great Game, the mixture of politics and espionage that took place in India and Afghanistan during the 1800s, with the British and the Russians jockeying for power and land.

The kid who is caught up in this is played by (a very young) Dean Stockwell, and Flynn (in his post-honey era) is actually good.

Although there is the scene where Kim is sent to a British boys' school in India to learn all that Euro stuff he needs to know, and is having trouble adjusting, and you see him over and over again doing things that are Not Done, and a wise mentor says to him, "We don't do that at St. Xavier's". They did this so many times in a row that we were in hysterics making up rude occasions for using this phrase.

But otherwise...it's a good movie. Well paced, good action scenes, actual plot development, fun to watch.