Gunga Din

1939

Adventure / Comedy / War

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 74% · 27 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 74% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 13535 13.5K

army british empire uprising soldier thuggee uprising 19th century

Plot summary

British army sergeants Ballantine, Cutter and MacChesney serve in India during the 1880s, along with their native water-bearer, Gunga Din. While completing a dangerous telegraph-repair mission, they unearth evidence of the suppressed Thuggee cult. When Gunga Din tells the sergeants about a secret temple made of gold, the fortune-hunting Cutter is captured by the Thuggees, and it's up to his friends to rescue him.

Director

George Stevens Photo
George Stevens

Top cast

Sam Jaffe Photo
Sam Jaffe as Gunga Din
Joan Fontaine Photo
Joan Fontaine as Emmy
Cary Grant Photo
Cary Grant as Sergeant Archibald Cutter
Abner Biberman Photo
Abner Biberman as Chota
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1.05 GB
1280*932
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 57 min
Seeds 4
1.95 GB
1472*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 57 min
Seeds 9

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by l_rawjalaurence 8 / 10

Swashbuckling Epic of the British Empire telling an American Story

Let's get the obvious out of the way: George Stevens's film contains many of the orientalist tropes that characterized many of the Hollywood India epics of the Thirties: a hero (Sam Jaffe) in blackface, an unashamedly imperialist message positing the British as the saviors of civilized India against the threat of the Thugs led by the Guru (Eduardo Ciannelli), and a celebration of the British virtues of friendship and loyalty as personified by the American Douglas Fairbanks jnr, and the English-born Victor McLaglen and Cary Grant.On the other hand the film must be looked at in context as a fundamentally American story of the frontier wrapped up in a British fictional form. The Indian forces whoop and charge just like the Native Indians - as represented in Westerns of that time - and the Californian locations (standing in for India) remind us of more recent US history and the need for the settlers to protect their lands (the fact that they stole it off the Native Indians in the first place being conveniently forgotten). GUNGA DIN follows in a venerable tradition of films of similar subject-matter produced by most of the major Hollywood studios, including CLIVE OF India (MGM, 1935), LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER (Paramount, 1935), and WEE WILLIE WINKIE (20th Century-Fox 1937), also starring McLaglen.In historical terms GUNGA DIN can also be approached as a warning against the evils of Fascism and dictatorship as personified by the Thugs, who are prepared to fight dirty at all costs to secure their aim of ruling the whole of India. It is only due to Gunga Din's selfless act of devotion to the British in alerting the troops as to the Thugs' plans that the colonial army is actually saved.In structural terms, George Stevens's film contains everything - plenty of swash and buckle at the beginning and end, some moments of pure comedy involving Grant, McLaglen and the luckless Sergeant Higginbottom (Robert Coote), a brief love-interest sequence with Fairbanks and a youthful Joan Fontaine, not to mention an inspiring end where Rudyard Kipling (Reginald Sheffield) crawls out of the tent canvas to pen the famous poem that provides the inspiration for the entire work. In short, there is something for just about everyone here.
Reviewed by ma-cortes 7 / 10

This movie featured by three swaggering sons of the British battalions and with the seething , gusty excitement of cyclone

The film is based on Kipling's heroic lines that inspire Hollywood's biggest movie 1939 . Out of the drumbeat rhythm of Kipling's most famous 85 lines rises a picture that will become known as the one great movie of the year . Big on the score of its armies in battle , its war elephants , its bandit hordes , its terror temples Thugs and mystic mountains of India . The picture is bigger still in its scope and sweep , is thrill and action but biggest of all in the life breathes through three (Gary Grant , Victor McLagen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr) roaring , reckless , swaggering sons of the thundering gunfighters men who stride its mighty scenes in the flesh and blood of high adventure , it's a honest film of it all that makes Gunga Din a new experience in entertainment . Joan Fontaine gambled her against the valiant sergeants three . The romance between Fontaine and Fairbanks Jr aflame through dangerous days and nights of terror in a land where anything can happen . This George Stevens motion picture has thrills for a thousand movies plundered for one mighty show . It's a fabulous , furious and far-flung adventure with the red-blood and gunpowder heroes who rise from the storied mystery of India and storm the screen with the lusty , rousing , robust life-thunder of men who fight for the love of it and love for the fun of it . Those portions of this picture dealing with the worship of The Goddess Kali are based on historic fact . Upon release a campaign was launched by the Indian newspapers against the misrepresentation of Indian caricatures in the film, and the displaying of insensitivity towards Hindu customs , following riots in India and Malaya the film was withdrawn by the censors . The roles of Sergeants Cutter, Ballantine, and MacChesney were based on Privates from Kipling's "Soldiers Three" short stories .The picture is well interpreted by the brave and roguish Gary Grant who rounded hundred villains Thugs and the mean Guru -Eduardo Ciannelli- , then Grant shouts : You're under arrest! . Gary Grant being amusingly accompanied by two great and sympathetic colleagues : Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Victor McLagen . Besides , appearing the heroic water man , Sam Jaffe , whose regiment colonel -Montagu Love- says of him : You're a better man than I am , Gunga Din ! . However , Sabu was first choice to play Gunga Din ; when it became clear he was unavailable , the Jewish Russian-American Sam Jaffe was hired in his place , playing convincingly the valiant Indian Muslim .
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