I saw the movie just after I had read the book and I realized that while some dialogue was copied verbatim, the end had been changed and the character played by Erol Flynn was given a greater role than in the book while the importance of some female characters that existed in the book was actually obliterated. Of course the movie cast the English as good and the Russians as bad as the book did and had all the trappings of the mythology of British imperialism as it would have been obvious in a book based on a Kipling novel.But the experience of watching it on screen was fine, since the movie had simplified some of the more esoteric meanderings of the book focusing on action or on the making a man- Kim- that is in character building, as the moral was that an essentially kind-hearted but mischievous oriental had to acquire the manners of an English gentleman-the role St Xavier's was preparing him for, and which he found difficult to follow-but at which he returned in the end through the guidance of the horse trader, a model of faith to the British. The role of he Lama was downplayed in the sense that the actions of his that the movie retained were only the ones that related with Kim's development as an individual and not the ones that had to do with his own spiritual quest. In the book, the Lama is just after Kim the second most important character while in the movie he is overshadowed by the horse trader played by Erol Flynn.Also importance is attached in the training Kim received in order to enter British Intelligence, an ambition that judging from the movie seemed to be what natives considered a crowning achievement. But still it is an enjoyable movie provided you agree with it's premises i.e. that the east is the playground of Westerners whose ways the natives would do well to emulate as Kim did or otherwise they would appear at best as well meaning but essentially exotic eccentrics as the Lama, or otherwise as dangerous criminals as all the opponent of British rule appeared in the film. The movie is really fun if you are a young westerner or someone who in latter life still retained this outlook but I suppose the same prerequisites apply to all Kipling's work- original or subject to adaptation.
