The Man Who Would Be King/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Containing the greatest set of last words that have ever been sung, by Sean Connery's Danny Dravott. After attempting to take over Kafiristan and doing quite well at it, Danny and Peachey are found out. Danny, having posed as a god, is condemned to walk out to the middle of the bridge built in his own honor, and wait while it is cut, as his last friend watches. Danny goes out onto the bridge, stands there a moment looking out to the horizon, then yells to his captors, "Can't you n-----s cut?!" (That line wasn't in the movie, for obvious reasons) Then, to pass the time, he sings "The Minstrel Boy," paired with the words of a Protestant hymn. Peachey joins him from the cliff's side in song, their voices combining into a ballad of courage and faith. And then the bridge is cut, and "like a penny-whirligig... it took him half an hour to fall."



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