Production
Pridi Banomyong, at the time Minister of Finance in the government of Prime Minister Plaek Pibulsonggram, produced the film, which was based on an English-language novel he had written. The cast of the movie were lecturers and students from Thammasat University, which Pridi had founded.
The film was made with the intent of conveying Pridi's conception of peace to international audiences, and was filmed in English, the first Thai film to do so. The film also took its themes from Buddhist philosophy, that there is no happiness that is greater than peace, but also carried the message that Pridi thought Thailand was ready to fight a war of aggression by any foreign invaders.
The movie was screened in New York City and Singapore.
After Japan invaded Thailand on December 8, 1941, Pridi became a leader of the Free Thai Movement resistance movement, while the Thai military dictators sided with Japan in the Axis Powers and declared war on Great Britain and the United States.
Read more about this topic: King Of The White Elephant
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)