Sean Connery and Michael Caine’s 1975 classic The Man Who Would Be King has many shocking stories from behind the scenes.
Based on the Rudyard Kipling classic, the film saw the two stars play rogue ex-soldiers in the British Army during the late 19th century when one is mistaken for a god and made king.
Director John Huston had attempted to make the movie in the 1950s, hoping to cast Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart as the leads, but the latter died before it could be made.
The filmmaker also considered the likes of Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.
When Robert Redford and Paul Newman’s names were suggested, they recommended Connery and Caine.
The pair soon signed on, although the James Bond star threatened to abandon the film when the producers almost dismissed Kipling actor Christopher Plummer. When not filming at Pinewood Studios, shooting occurred in France and Morocco, where Huston’s lack of direction made the two stars concerned.
Caine remembered a few weeks in that he and Connery were worried by this, so he approached Huston asking if anything was wrong. The director replied: “You’re getting paid a lot of money to do this, Michael, I think you should do it by yourself.”
The filmmaker would also only refer to the stars by their character names on set as Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan and both went on to improvise dialogue and scenes. Meanwhile, the two actors were disgusted by the racist treatment that Gurkha guide Billy Fish co-star Saeed Jaffrey received.
Jaffrey wasn’t given a chair to sit on between takes on-location, so Caine screamed at the crew: “Get this man a f***ing chair!” On a lighter note, Connery was hilariously pranked on set being told that in order not to upset a local sheikh, he’d need to eat a dish of sheep’s eyes. After the Bond star had finished, the sheikh was revealed to be his old friend, Eric Sykes. Aside from this incident, the Scot couldn’t stand heights and struggled with the final scene on a rope bridge.
Caine recalled: “There was a day when we shooting on the rope bridge and Sean turned to John and said, ‘Do you think the bridge looks safe?’ John lowered his eyes and said, ‘Sean, the bridge looks the way it always has. The only difference is that today, you’re going to be standing in the middle of it.’”
