Gunga Din ***** (1939, Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, Sam Jaffe) – Classic Movie Review 2439

Director George Stevens’s stirring 1939 movie Gunga Din was RKO Radio Pictures’ biggest movie up till that time. It is a hugely entertaining North West Frontier adventure yarn based loosely on Rudyard Kipling’s poem.

Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jnr are on top form as the ideal embodiments of the stalwart, lusty, swaggering sergeants three of Kipling’s poem, a trio of British soldiers who have to stop a secret mass revival of the murderous Thuggee cult before it can rampage across 19th century India. Sam Jaffe is also outstanding as the native water-bearer hero of the title.

It is meticulously directed by Stevens after Howard Hawks dropped out and rushed along with a most rousing music score by Alfred Newman.

Also in the cast are Eduardo Ciannelli (Guru), Joan Fontaine (Emmy), Montagu Love (Colonel Weed), Robert Coote (Higginbotham), Abner Biberman, Lumsden Hare and Cecil Kellaway.

Gunga Din was remade as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra in 1961 and retitled as Sergeants 3.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2439

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