Jungle Book

A loose adaptation of Kipling. Mowgli, raised by wolves, returns to the village, relearns human speech, then falls out with the villagers over treasure and greed. The reckoning with Shere Khan runs to the end. Zoltan Korda directed, his brother Alexander produced. Mowgli is played by Sabu, at the time the most famous Indian child actor in the world. The film was shot in California, not India. A complete Indian village was built beside a river for the production, and most of the animals are real, sharing the frame with the actor. Miklos Rozsa's score earned one of the film's four Oscar nominations and is cited among the first film scores issued commercially on record, narrated by Sabu himself. The Technicolor is still the strongest thing here: the jungle reads orange and blue more than green. Who it is for: lovers of old studio adventure and handmade set design. Who it is not for: anyone after fidelity to Kipling, or bothered by a colonial-era gaze.