- published: 02 Jul 2015
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Gunga Din is a 1939 RKO adventure film directed by George Stevens, (very) loosely based on the poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling, combined with elements of his novel Soldiers Three. The film is about three British sergeants and Gunga Din, their native water bearer, who fight the Thuggee, a cult of murderous Indians in colonial British India.
The film stars Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Fontaine, Eduardo Ciannelli, and, in the title role, Sam Jaffe. The epic film was written by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol from a storyline by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with uncredited contributions by Lester Cohen, John Colton, William Faulkner, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols and Anthony Veiller.
On the Northwest Frontier of colonial India, circa 1880, contact has been lost with a British outpost at Tantrapur in the midst of a telegraph message. Colonel Weed (Montagu Love) dispatches a detachment of 25 British Indian Army troops to investigate, led by three sergeants of the Royal Engineers, MacChesney (Victor McLaglen), Cutter (Cary Grant), and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), long-time friends and veteran campaigners. Although they are a disciplinary headache for their colonel, they are the right men to send on a dangerous mission. Accompanying the detail are six Indian camp workers, including regimental bhisti (water-bearer) Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), who longs to throw off his lowly status and become a soldier of the Queen.
Actors: Joe McGuinn (actor), Victor McLaglen (actor), Eduardo Ciannelli (actor), Charles Bennett (actor), Abner Biberman (actor), Montagu Love (actor), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (actor), Richard Farnsworth (actor), Olin Francis (actor), Robert Coote (actor), Cary Grant (actor), Lumsden Hare (actor), Sam Harris (actor), Cecil Kellaway (actor), Art Mix (actor),
Plot: Based loosely on the poem by Rudyard Kipling, this takes place in British India during the Thuggee uprising. Three fun loving sergeants are doing fine until one of them wants to get married and leave the service. The other two trick him into a final mission where they end up confronting the entire cult by themselves as the British Army is entering a trap. This is of the "War is fun" school of movie making. It has the flavour of watching Notre Dame play an inferior high school team.
Keywords: 1880s, 19th-century, ambush, army, based-on-poem, battle, battlefield, bayonet, bolt-action-rifle, brawlActors: Paul Sloane (writer), William Fox (miscellaneous crew), Mary Carr (actress), Violet Mersereau (actress), Paul Sloane (writer), Richard Stanton (director), J. Barney Sherry (actor), Paul Willis (actor), Maude Hill (actress), John Daly Murphy (actor), Walter McEwen (actor), Carol Chase (actress), Thomas McCann (actor),
Genres: Drama,If, the nets were full of holes and all the holes were
full of dreams
The dreams were full of fortune they'd be bursting at
the seams.
The seams were made of gold and you could understand
the signs
Would you bet your easy money on the Christians or the
lions?
I'll be true to you
No matter what you do
How you diddlin' ?
Fair to middlin'
I'll be true to you
If you put into the history books the writings on the
wall
You'll turn them into mystery books and they're no use
at all
No one listens to the losers or the prophets or the
boys
If you wanted to you couldn't 'cause they're making too
much noise
I'll be true to you
No matter what you do
How you diddlin' ?
Fair to middlin'
I'll be true to you
Through the whistlin' and the dancin' and the flyin' of
the feet.
The drinkin' and the fightin' and the cryin' in the
street.
There's something I must tell you boy before I jack it
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din
My daddy was from Scotland and I couldn't understand
A single word he said to me until I was a man.
It was about the time I had me wisdom tooth put in
'Twas then I saw the whiskers growing on a dead man's
chin
I'll be true to you
No matter what you do
How you diddlin' ?
Fair to middlin'