HAS HERO’S PART

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 April 1941, Page 3

HAS HERO’S PART

SABU IN NEW FILM. Sabu, the little Indian boy, has used some very fancy modes of transportation. in the pictures in which he has appeared. In his first film he rode an elephant, and, in his second, a pureblooded Arabian charger, but these are very mundane compared with the methods he used to get about in his role in Alexander Korda’s all-techni-colour production, “The Thief of Bag-' dad.” In “The Thief of Bagdad” Sabu disdains such simple things as elephants and horses and resorts instead to several efficient, if fantastic, substitutes. He uses first a flying horse, then a magic carpet of Arabian Nights fame, and finally, when these lose their novelty, he employs a 200-foot-tall djinni as a beast of burden to take him from place to place. Sabu was born in 1923 in the Karapur Jungle, forty-five miles from, the city of Mysore, in Southern India. His father, Sheik Ibrahim, a Mohammedan, was a mahout In the service of the Maharaja of Mysore. The boy was literally born and brought up among the elephants, and on the death of his father he continued to spend most of his time around the elephant stables, living with his elder brother, who drove a taxi in the streets of Mysore. At this time Sabu was but six years old, and as an orphan he received his father’s pension of two rupees —about 3s in English money—a month. It was while the lad was riding through the streets of a village astride one of the Maharajah’s big pachyderms that he was discovered by Robert Flaherty, then on location for scenes for the London Films production of “Elephant Boy,” and was immediately tested and signed for the leading role in that production, his first appearance on the screen. At that time Sabu was unable to speak a word of English and understood but little, but the services of a Brahmin teacher were secured, and the boy's quick wit and intelligence made it possible for him, in an incredibly short time, to speak, with only a slight trace of accent, the lines of dialogue required. He astonished everyone by his facility for learning. By the time he appeared in “The Drum he spoke English fluently, and his tutor had started to teach him French and German. Sabu has a great capacity for absorbing knowcldge—he is not exactly an ant, but he works like one. No amount of repetition, no physical work can dull his enthusiasm for a task on hand.