The second of two films Errol Flynn made at MGM, following That Forsyte Woman (apparently the studio also wanted him for King Solomon's Mines and Ivanhoe, a double that could have really turned his career around).This is a decent-ish adventure film that occasionally threatens to take off but then goes back down to the tarmac - the pacing is slightly sluggish and the various plots create a sort of meandering feeling. One only wishes that it had been made under the virile hand of a producer like Thalberg or Sleznick at his peak (mind you, that might have meant we would have had a Freddie Bartholomew or Mickey Rooney as Kim).
Dean Stockwell is alright in the lead, a bit too American but most of the cast are; his character is a little bit of a snot at first (getting food by making a baby cry by shoving a bindy against its backside) but becomes more likeable once they shove him into a snooty boarding school and send him to spy academy.
The relationship between Stockwell and lama Paul Lukas is meant to be the heart of the story, but far better are the scenes involving spying and derring-do; the finale is quite exciting. Errol pops in and out of the film as a swaggering Muslim horse trader (!) who spies for the British. Another Aussie expat, Cecil Kellaway, also plays a British spy. The colour and location filming are pluses.
(NB this is another Errol Flynn film with Errol as a dream big brother, like The Prince and the Pauper, i.e. poor Errol gets no romance - which makes it officially a kids film I think.)
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