Gunga Din Summary
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: George Stevens
Genres: Adventure
Rating:
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, Rovi
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