Man-Eater of Kumaon

I fail to understand why people like ceswart and moxie-7 who have almost no understanding of the intricacies of tiger conservation make stupid and wrong statements... There several major mistakes in what they both have said.

1. Two-third of the Sundarbans is in Bangladesh while the remaining one- third is in India.

2. Neither Bangladeshi nor Indian rangers are permitted to kill tigers unless in self-defense (at a time when the tiger attacks someone in front of the ranger).

3. The tiger population in the Sundarbans in 270 as of 2013 and was less (around 220) in 2005.

4. The total tiger (Royal Bengal Tiger) population is just 1400 approx. and human population is close to 7 billion so it is necessary to protect tigers and they should be given preference over human beings in case of a conflict situation.

5. Around 150 individuals are killed by tigers in the Sundarban area (most of them are not killed by man-eaters but by tigers that feel threatened because people venture too deep into the tiger habitat and end up going too close to a tiger or its cubs).

Getting to the topic of this movie... it is very disappointing to say very the least.

I'm not sure why "ceswart" chose the IMDb for his comment but I feel duty bound to point out that it contains three significant errors. First, the Sundarbans, to give the the area its correct spelling, are in Bangladesh, not India. Secondly, the Bangladeshi government maintains foresters who hunt down and kill man-eaters, just like Jim Corbett did for the Indian Forest Service almost a century ago. Third, the total number of humans killed by tigers in all of Bangladesh between 1984 and 2001 was 427, a terrible toll to be sure, but a far cry from 300 a year.

What's really interesting is that the increased prevalence of man-eaters in the area is caused by the increased salinity of the Bramaputra river water. This, in turn, is caused by development upstream, mostly in India, decreasing to total flow and allowing back wash from the Bay of Bengal. The extra salt damages the tigers' livers, enervating them to the point that they become man-eaters. Corbett was right!

I don't mean to be preachy but wouldn't it be better to restrict this forum to movie talk and put social commentary on more appropriate bulletin boards elsewhere on the net?

Wendell Corey is a very disaffected doctor traveling through India. On a safari, he shoots at a tiger and blows off part of its paw--but the animal manages to escape. Now, injured, the tiger has a hard time capturing fast prey and resorts to catching a very slow one...people! Now you'd think Corey might feel a tad responsible for this, but he's so busy brooding and feeling sorry for himself (he's lost his wife and given up his practice). Later, however, after he gets to know the people, Corey cannot help but go back to the jungle in search of this man-hunter. And now, it's either him or the tiger...

The one thing anyone will notice about the film is that apart from Sabu and one or two others, the rest of the Indian cast is made up of white and Hispanic actors in body paint. This is kind of offensive--perhaps they had trouble finding Indians (from India) in the States at that time, though I assume if they'd tried harder they could have. As the result of this and a script that seemed filled with the inevitable, it's only a minor time-passer. Not bad--just not particularly good.

By the way, while you see a toucan in the film, they are only found in the Americas--not in Asia nor anywhere near it.

Tense direction, good acting by Corey and Sabu. Corbett was an animal rights enthusiast but shot and killed a lot of big cats in his day. Many Indian villagers owed their lives to him.

Many people look at sadistic murderers and tigers in the same way, i.e., it's not their fault. This to me is sickening.

Lovers of tigers need to know that tigers hunt and kill 300 villagers a year in the Sundabans mangrove swamps on the Bay of Bengal. Shamefully, the Indian government protects these tigers at the expense of its human population. This is not laudable to me. I'm sure PETA animal lovers would not wish to hunt wood in the swamps of the Sundabands, infested as it is with over 500 man-eating tigers.

So much for the romance of the big cats.

Doctor Wendell Corey is a killer of man-eating cats in India. He has had enough of that and is preparing to leave. However, he comes across a child who is the sole survivor of a group of people killed by a man-eating tiger. He takes the child to a village run by Morris Carnovsky and his son Sabu. He assures them he has come far enough the tiger will not follow. But he is wrong.

It's based on the title of Jim Corbett's -- not that one -- best-selling book about being a character a bit like Corey. Actually, it's based on the title. It's not the first time that Hollywood took a book and threw away what was on the page, and Universal did have Sabu under contract. What shows up on screen is about fate and the need to accept it stoically but creatively. It's a nice exotic little tale, but Corbett, on seeing it, noted that the best actor in it was the tiger.