NFR Project: 'Gunga Din' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Gunga Din’

Dir: George Stevens

Scr: Joel Sayre, Fred Guiol

Pho: Joseph A. August

Ed: Henry Berman

Premiere: Feb.17, 1939

117 min.

It’s one of the most successful adventure films of all time, structured perfectly to propel its story forward. It took many writers to get it into shape. It has since drawn fire for its pro-imperialist, fundamentally racist foundations.

The movie is derived very loosely from the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling. It’s set in India, during the days when the British Empire ruled it. A sect of religious fanatics, the Thugees, threaten to overthrow English rule. Arrayed against them is the British army, and three sergeants – Cutter (Cary Grant), MacChesney (Victor McLaglen), and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) The three are happy-go-lucky soldiers who aren’t afraid of a fight. One of their regimental bhistis (water carriers), Gunga Din, (played by the white Sam Jaffe in brownface). Din longs to be a soldier, but is looked down on as a mere servant. Ballantine, shortly to end his enlistment and retire, is mocked by his two friends.

A fight they get. First, they are sent out to discover what happened to an outpost that has lost contact with headquarters. There they find the Thugees in strength, and they fight their way to safety in a well-staged set piece of a battle. The three return to base, but Cutter soon goes astray. He wants to loot a hidden temple high in the mountains, but is placed in the stockade to prevent this. He escapes with the help of Din and an elephant.

The temple is found, but it is full of Thugees who are planning an uprising against the regiment. Cutter sends Din to warn the others, then gets himself captured. MacChesney and Ballantine come to his rescue (Ballantine signs reenlistment papers to do so), but are captured as well. There they hear from the sinister Guru of the Thugees (another white man in brownface, Eduardo Cianelli), who outline his plan for the destruction of the regiment.

The regiment arrives, and the three try desperately to warn them, to no avail. Din climbs to the top of the temple and sounds the alarm on a bugle saving the regiment – and is shot down for his pains. The enemy is routed, and the three are back together again, somewhat worse for wear. Din is posthumously made a corporal.

The script was worked on by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol, working from an outline created by the great writing team of Ben Hechy and Charles MacArthur. Additional rewrites were wrung out of Leston Cohen, James Colton, the famous novelist William Faulkner, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols, and Anthony Veiller.

Despite all these cooks, the broth comes out tasty. The action is inventive, streamlined, and continuous, broken up only by effective comic scenes. It’s a boys’ film – the only woman in the scenario is dispensed with rather quickly. The movie has energy, flair, and wit.

The problems? Well, naturally, the movie is on the side of the Empire, portraying non-white character as either fools or devils. The primary Indian roles are played by white men in literal brownface and body makeup. This kind of taken-for-granted racism pervades the film.

The great German playwright Bertolt Brecht had these interesting words to say about it: “"I felt like applauding, and laughed in all the right places, despite the fact that I knew all the time that there was something wrong, that the Indians are not primitive and uncultured people but have a magnificent age-old culture, and that this Gunga Din could also be seen in a different light, e.g. as a traitor to his people, I was amused and touched because this utterly distorted account was an artistic success and considerable resources in talent and ingenuity had been applied in making it. Obviously artistic appreciation of this sort is not without effects. It weakens the good instincts and strengthens the bad, it contradicts true experience and spreads misconceptions, in short it perverts our picture of the world."

Interesting. Of course, he is correct in his observations. If you turn off your brain and watch it, you are bound to have a good time. Grant, MacLaglen, and Fairbanks are all perfect for their roles, and their banter is top-notch. Director Stevens creates two battles, the latter staged with hundreds of extras, and handles those conflicts with flair. In the end, the movie is irresistible, despite its imperialistic underpinnings.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Marian Anderson: the Lincoln Memorial Concert.