Rating: NR
Genre:
Adventure
Release Date: 12/14/2004
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 117 Minutes
Flags: Mild Violence, War Violence
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
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
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