Elephant boy

Description: Based on Kipling”s “Toomai of the Elephants”, with Sabu as little Toomai, son of the Mahout, and Kala Nag, the elephant. Tells the story of a government expedition in search of wild elephants in the state of Mysore. Toomai’s adventures with Kala Nag and the herd of wild elephants finally leads him to be accorded with the same title of his famous grandfather “Toomai of the Elephants”. This film was beset with difficulties from the start. After years of attempting to obtain sufficient finance to film Kipling’s original story, Flaherty found support from Alexander Korda in 1935 and the Flahertys journeyed to India to adopt (from them) a new method of film making - the original practice adopted by Flaherty of “letting the story flow” and absorbing the way of life of native people and their surroundings was not entirely carried out in the case of “Elephant boy”. Whilst much of the film was shot in studios in England, the film is distinguished by beautiful photography and many fine sequences breathing the very atmosphere of India, captured by Flaherty on location