Movie Thoughts: Man-Eater of Kumaon (1948)

• Released: July 1st, 1948
• Directed by: Byron Haskin
• Running time: 1h 19min
• Rating 2/5

Synopsis

An American hunter staying in India decides to hunt a man-eating tiger.

My Thoughts

I've been reading a lot about Jim Corbett, a real-life hunter who hunted man-eating tigers and leopards, recently. This movie is loosely based on his hunt for one such animal.

But when I say loosely, I mean very loosely. Only a few elements return, the rest of the movie is entirely fiction. Corbett himself also doesn't appear, instead it's John Collins, a completely made-up character. As are the events of the movie and the other characters.

And yeah, this isn't a very good movie. It's just not super well-written and I didn't find many of the characters to be particularly likable. The only character I genuinely liked was the woman named Lali, who just suffers so much and is put down by the story so much I just felt really, really bad for her.

This movie also has a sexism problem. "Product of the times" yadda yadda, I know, but it was still unpleasant to watch. I'm also pretty sure that some of these actors aren't actually Indian but are rather wearing brownface, so that's another yikes from me.

I do like the tiger, I thought he was cool, but honestly the movie kinda unintentionally made me feel bad for the tiger as well. I get that the tiger was a danger to the people and had to be killed, but man, I do feel sorry for it at least somewhat. If Collins hadn't come along and injured it, it could've still hunted its natural prey and wouldn't have become a man-eater. So basically Collins is hunting a monster of his own making throughout this film.

Not a very good movie, recommend you skip this one.