GUNGA DIN (1939) (DVD) DVD

Gunga Din
Though Rudyard Kipling's poem Gunga Din makes a swell recital piece, it cannot be said to have much of a plot. It's simply a crude cockney soldier's tribute to a native Indian water boy who remains at his job even after being mortally wounded. Hardly the sort of material upon which to build 118 minutes' worth of screen time-at least, it wasn't until RKO producer Pandro S. Berman decided to convert Gunga Din into an A-budgeted feature film. Now it became the tale of three eternally brawling British sergeants stationed in colonial India: Cutter (Cary Grant), McChesney (Victor McLaglen) and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Ballantine intends to break up the threesome by marrying lovely Emmy Stebbins (Joan Fontaine), while Cutter and McChesney begin hatching diabolical schemes to keep Ballantine in the army (if this plot element sounds a lot like something from the Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, bear in mind that Hecht and McArthur shared writing credit on Gunga Din with Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol; also contributing to the screenplay, uncredited, was William Faulkner). All three sergeants are kept occupied with a native revolt fomented by the Thuggees, a fanatical religious cult headed by a Napoleonic Guru (Eduardo Ciannelli). Unexpectedly coming to the rescue of our three heroes-not to mention every white man, woman and child in the region-is humble water carrier Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), who aspires to become the regimental trumpeter. Originally slated to be directed by Howard Hawks, Gunga Din was taken out of Hawks' hands when the director proved to be too slow during the filming of Bringing Up Baby. His replacement was George Stevens, who proved to be slower and more exacting than Hawks had ever been! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast Cary Grant as Archibald Cutter Victor McLaglen as Sgt. MacChesney Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Sgt. Ballantine Sam Jaffe as Gunga Din Eduardo Ciannelli as Guru Joan Fontaine as Emmy Stebbins Montagu Love as Colonel Robert Coote as Higginbotham Abner Biberman as Chota Lumsden Hare as Maj. Mitchell

Crew Perry Ferguson - Art Director Van Nest Polglase - Art Director Edward Stevenson - Costume Designer Dewey Starkey - First Assistant Director Edward Killy - First Assistant Director George Stevens - Director Harry Berman - Editor Henry Berman - Editor John Lockert - Editor Alfred Newman - Composer (Music Score) Joseph H. August - Cinematographer Pandro S. Berman - Producer George Stevens - Producer Darrell Silvera - Set Designer Russell A. Cully - Special Effects Vernon Walker - Special Effects John E. Tribby - Sound/Sound Designer James G. Stewart - Sound/Sound Designer Charles MacArthur - Screen Story Fred Guiol - Screenwriter William Faulkner - Screenwriter Joel Sayre - Screenwriter Ben Hecht - Play Author Ben Hecht - Short Story Author

Gunga Din
George Stevens' Gunga Din was not only the best of Hollywood's forays into colonialist adventure yarns, it served as the blueprint for many action-adventure movies for years after its release. It is a tribute to Stevens' direction and the uniformly superb cast that the film was a rousing success upon its release, and has endured as a popular favorite for decades since. Americans have always had problematic relationships with stories of British colonialism, but we also love a good adventure yarn, and the usual Hollywood compromise is to ignore the particulars, hold one's nose at the worst elements of subjugation, and just tell the story. That was the approach of the five screenwriters (including Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur and the uncredited William Faulkner) involved in the project, and director Stevens adhered to their work to the letter in telling Rudyard Kipling's story of life, love, and adventure on the frontier of the Indian subcontinent. In the film, the British army is a peace-keeping force, protecting the native populace from a murderous cult of religious fanatics who kill anyone in their way, including their own people. If the paternalistic attitude of the British seems heavy-handed, the oversight is more than outweighed by the savagery of the characters they're fighting. The pacing includes room for ample roughhousing, some of it bordering on slapstick, and rich character development. The actors play their parts as though they were born for them: Victor McLaglen, in particular, cuts a surprisingly dashing figure as Sergeant McChesney; the actor was nearly a decade away from settling into the more comical and jovial character roles that he played in John Ford's films. Cary Grant displays a larcenous side to his screen persona which in many ways anticipates his most compelling dramatic performance, in None But the Lonely Heart. Ironically, for a film that introduced author Kipling to the mass public than any other adaptation of his work, Gunga Din ran afoul of the sensibilities of the author's widow, who objected to the scenes depicting an unnamed, Kipling-like journalist, and those shots were cut at her request after the first run of the movie. These scenes would remain unseen until the late 1980s, when they were restored under the auspices of Turner Entertainment, the company that purchased the RKO film library. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
 

Joseph H. August: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Black and White Cinematography (nominated)

Library of Congress, U.S. National Film Registry (winner)

General Specifications: Language Options: English Subtitle Options: English, French, Spanish Sound Processing: DD1: Dolby Digital Mono Additional Features: Making of documentary on location with Gunga Din Commentary by historian Rudy Behlmer Vintage Porky Pig Looney Tunes cartoon The Film Fan DVD Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1: Pre-1954 Standard MPAA Rating: NR DVD Discs Included: 1 DVD Sides: 1 DVD DVD Region Code: 1 Content Length: 117 min   DVD Chapters: Side #1 -- 1. Credits [2:17] 2. Gone Bad [4:22] 3. Sergeants Three [3:59] 4. Arrival at Tantrapur [4:23] 5. Playful Subjects [4:00] 6. Your Graves are Dug [3:57] 7. Dynamite Fight [4:07] 8. Sign of the Thuggees [4:31] 9. Very Regimental [3:57] 10. Daddy's Girl [3:06] 11. Punching up the Punch [5:29] 12. Down Higginbotham's Hatch [2:57] 13. Reassigned [2:36] 14. Make Way for the Expedition [5:43] 15. Jailbreak Tool [3:51] 16. Playing Bridge [2:06] 17. Cult of Kali [5:25] 18. Cutter's Gambit [3:25] 19. Signing On [7:04] 20. Temple Trap [2:33] 21. Snake Pit [4:47] 22. Superior Strategy [2:05] 23. Golden Targets [2:31] 24. Guru's Madness [7:53] 25. For Faith and Country [2:56] 26. March Toward Ambush [3:47] 27. Warning Bugle [1:58] 28. Turnabout Victory [4:56] 29. Honored Dead [3:14] 30. A Better Man [1:34] 31. Cast List [1:13]