Gunga Din

Director: George Stevens George Stevens

Overview

"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!"

Product Details

Release Date:	12/07/2004
UPC:	0053939683622
Original Release:	1939
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Home Video
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	17,423

Special Features

Making of documentary on location with Gunga Din; Commentary by historian Rudy Behlmer; Vintage Porky Pig Looney Tunes cartoon The Film Fan

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Cary Grant	Sgt. Cutter
Victor McLaglen	Sgt. MacChesney
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	Sgt. Ballantine
Sam Jaffe	Gunga Din
Eduardo Ciannelli	Guru
Joan Fontaine	Emmy Stebbins
Montagu Love	Col. Weed
Robert Coote	Higganbotham
Abner Biberman	Chota
Lumsden Hare	Maj. Mitchell
Reginald Sheffield	Journalist
Cecil Kellaway	Mr. Stebbins
Ann Evers	Girl at Party
Audrey Manners	Girl at Party
Fay McKenzie	Girl at Party
Roland Varno	Lt. Markham
Charles Bennett	Telegraph Operator
David Niven	Actor
Leslie Sketchley	Corporal
Frank Levya	Native Merchant
Jamiel Hasson	Thug Chieftain
George Regas	Thug Chieftain
Bryant Fryer	Scotch Sergeant
Lal Chand Mehra	Jadoo
Clive Morgan	Lancer Captain
Olin Francis	Fulad
Jim Horne	Actor
Douglas Fairbanks	Actor
John Alban	Actor
Joe De La Cruz	Actor
George Du Count	Pandu Lal
Richard Farnsworth	Bit Part
Frank Leyva	Merchant
Joe McGuinn	Actor
Alfred Newman	Composer
Gene Coogan	Actor
James Dime	Actor

Technical Credits

Joel Sayre

Fred Guiol

Ben Hecht

Charles MacArthur

Rudyard Kipling

Lester Cohen

William Faulkner

Vincent Lawrence

Dudley Nichols

Anthony Veiller

Joel Sayre	Screenwriter
Fred Guiol	Screenwriter
George Stevens	Producer,Director
Vernon L. Walker	Special Effects
Ben Hecht	Screenwriter
Charles MacArthur	Screenwriter
Rudyard Kipling	Screenwriter
Lester Cohen	Screenwriter
William Faulkner	Screenwriter
Vincent Lawrence	Screenwriter
Dudley Nichols	Screenwriter
Anthony Veiller	Screenwriter
James G. Stewart	Sound Effects
John C. Grubb	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

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.