Gunga Din

I hate beginning a post with a plug for someone else, but Leonard Maltin really does say it best: "Gunga Din" is THE action adventure spectacle of Old Hollywood. There had been films of its kind before, most notably "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" from 1935, but none combined the comedy with the requisite action and adventure like George Stevens' "Gunga Din". I attribute this to the presence of stars Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen, who consistently keep the film's tone light and the mood rollicking. Joining them is Douglas Fairbanks Jr., whose father virtually invented the action/adventure genre, although unfortunately here, his role is reduced to that of the straight man. As Sgt. Ballantine, Fairbanks gets to woo the lady, the beautiful Joan Fontaine, but also has to play the 'stick-in-the-mud', having the gall to leave his friends, Grant's Sgt. Cutter and McLaglen's Sgt. MacChesney, while on tour in the wilds of India. Of course Cutter and Mac scheme to keep Ballantine in Her Majesty's army, in the process looking for lost treasure and fighting a vicious Thuggee cult. That is what makes this movie, and others like it, so great. They portray fighting bloodthirsty "savages" as fun, something handsome young men did in the old days, and believe it or not, this jovial spirit works throughout the film, thanks to Stevens' excellent direction.

As the film begins we learn that the Thuggee have been terrorizing the British imperial colony of India. Raiding towns and killing locals and soldiers, the army decides to send its crack core of men, the regiment featuring our lead trio, after them. The film masterfully introduces its three leads characters, giving them each an opportunity to shine while engaging in an elaborate fight. Cutter has arguably the best intro, dropping the man he is brawling with from an open window after being told "let go of that man!". After narrowly escaping capture by a Thuggee war party, leaping to safety by diving into a large chasm, a sequence that still thrills today, and receiving their orders each man has his own ideas: Ballantine knows that his discharge is going to happen before setting off after the Thuggee, MacChesney longs to be reunited with his beloved elephant Annie, and Cutter and his waterboy friend, the titular Gunga Din, revel in the prospect of finding lost treasure the Thugee temples allegedly possess. Ballantine's leaving takes immediate precedence however, and the troublemaking Cutter and Mac try a number of different ruses to keep Ballantine with the regiment, many of them quite humorous. My favorite is the poison they end up giving to the man to be Ballantine's replacement. While the effects of the poison are not entirely known, a potted plant that is inadvertently put into the punch bowl spiked with the poison immediately wilts, prompting hilarious facial reactions from Cutter and Mac, and a severely upset stomach from poor Ballantine's replacement.

With Ballantine's replacement indisposed, Ballantine is forced to fall back in with the regiment for one more tour. Cutter and Mac know that the longer they keep him, the harder it will be to leave, and despite his intentions to marry Emmy Stebbins, his real love is for his friends, rabble rousing around India. After Cutter and Gunga Din stumble upon the main Thuggee temple, and of course are captured, it is up to Mac and Ballantine to come looking for them. Little do they, and the rest of the regiment, know, but the entire Thuggee army is converging to massacre the British forces. Captured in the tower of the temple, the three sergeants and Gunga Din can only watch as the Thuggee keep them pined down with gunfire, powerless to stop the impending Thuggee attack on the oblivious advancing British troops. That is until Gunga Din, in a celebrated act of bravery, leaps to the pedestal of the tower and blows the bugle call for alarm. The British troops now warned, they fan out and easily defeat the Thuggee, who were relying solely on their strategic advantage. Cutter, Mac and Ballantine join in the fight as well, each displaying courage, but none so great as Gunga Din. A somber memorial service concludes the film, as Rudyard Kipling, the writer whose poem "inspired" (an innovation not unique to 21st century Hollywood) the film, is on hand to dictate the now famous lines "you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din". One of the last things to note about this film is that much was made about it being filmed "on location". In today's Hollywood that would mean actually shooting in the deserts and steppes of India. In 1939, that meant shooting in Lone Pine, California, a whole couple hours north of Los Angeles. While the methods of filming exotic films has changed, the standard that "Gunga Din" established has not, and is one that still stands today.