them. The other natives are awed, and hail him as "Toomai of the Elephants". Machua Appa offers to train the boy to become a hunter, a plan Petersen approves of. Cast Sabu as Toomai W. E. Holloway as Father Walter Hudd as Petersen Allan Jeayes as Machua Appa Bruce Gordon as Rham Lahl D. J. Williams as Hunter Wilfrid Hyde-White as Commissioner Iravatha as Kala Nag (uncredited) Harry Lane as Bit Part (uncredited) Shaheed Udham Singh (uncredited) Critical reception In a contemporary review, The New York Times found the film "one of the most likable of the jungle pictures. Having a simple story at its heart, it has had the wisdom and the good taste to tell it simply and without recourse to synthetic sensationalism. Sabu, its 12-year-old hero, never once is chased by a tiger, embraced by a python or dropped into a swirl of crocodiles," and concluded, "Sabu, the Indian boy, is a sunny-faced, manly little youngster, whose naturalness beneath the camera's scrutiny should bring blushes to the faces of the precocious wonder-children of Hollywood. He's a much better actor than the British players Mr. Flaherty tried to disguise behind frizzed beards and Indian names". Other critics were less kind. Writing for The Spectator in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a poor review, characterizing it as a "faltering and repetitive picture" and noting that the "disappointing diminutive achievement" was caused directly by "enormous advance publicity, [the] director [being] out of touch with the Press for months, [and] rumours". Greene criticized director Flahery as having released a film with "bad cutting, [] dreadful studio work, [and a] pedestrian adaptation [of] Kipling's story", and specified that Flaherty's biggest "positive crime" in the film was its story construction. More recently, Time Out thought the film "Amiable but dated," and specifically, "Fiction and documentary footage rub shoulders uneasily, but the latter (shot by Flaherty in India) is vividly watchable." References Bibliography Michael Korda, Charmed Lives: The Fabulous World of the Korda Brothers (1980) 118–20. External links Criterion Collection Essay 1937 films 1930s adventure drama films British adventure drama films British black-and-white films The Jungle Book films Jungle adventure films Films based on short fiction Films about elephants Films set in India London Films films Films shot at Denham Film Studios Films directed by Robert Flaherty Films directed by Zoltán Korda Films produced by Alexander Korda United Artists films 1937 drama films