Watch Gunga Din For Free

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Copyright 27 January 1939 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 26 January 1939. U.S. release: 17 February 1939. U.K. release: March 1939. Australian release: 4 May 1939. 12 reels. 117 minutes.NOTES: Locations in Lone Pine, California. Also Chatsworth and Lake Sherwood. Negative cost: $1,909,669.28. RKO's top box=office attraction of 1938-39, the movie was successfully re-issued in the mid-1940s.COMMENT: The original "Soldiers Three" does not quite deserve its reputation as a top film of the year. Obviously inspired by the success of "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" (some of the impressive crowd footage is even culled from that film), it does not hold a candle to Hathaway's film in any respect save one — the photography by Joseph August with its searing brightness and lack of contrast can be compared favorably alongside the more artistic work of Charles Lang on Bengal Lancer. Both are atmospheric, yet achieve their effects in different ways. Otherwise, "Gunga Din" comes off second best in all departments — acting with a bland Douglas Fairbanks Jr, a ridiculous, exaggerated, excitable Cockney from Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen as rambunctious to a degree that he has elevated into a mannerism, cannot compare with Franchot Tone, Cooper and Cromwell; just as Montagu Love cannot compare with Sir Guy Standing or Abner Biberman with Monte Blue. Admittedly, Eduardo Ciannelli is very effective as the Thug high priest, and Sam Jaffe is suitably funny-ethnic in the title role. Expansively produced, boasting good battle scenes, action and atmosphere, the movie tends to be over-talkative in its full version and I'm not surprised it was cut when re-issued. Joan Fontaine has a small clinging-vine part. Stevens' direction has lots of good camera set-ups, but lacks the dynamism that director Henry Hathaway brought to "Lives of a Bengal Lancer".

GUNGA DIN is a fun little Hollywood adventure film of 1939, once a big hit. The first thing you should note is that it has very little to do with the famous Rudyard Kipling poem of the same title, although Sam Jaffe's Gunga Din is a supporting character. Mostly this is a typical slice of old-fashioned escapism in which a trio of heroes do their best to thwart a Thuggee uprising. The film has action, peril, and war scenes, along with humour in the form of quarrelsome lovers and outlandish elephants. The heroes are a good bunch and played by the youthful forms of Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen alongside Douglas Fairbanks Jr., while Joan Fontaine has an early role to boot. It's fair to call this dated, but that didn't spoil my enjoyment of it at all.

This was ridiculously bad. For about half the film, there's no story, we're merely thrown scenes at. Then, it's some of the most stereotypical material you could think of on screen. It's some of the gratuitous, predictable, terribly obvious and unsubtle on screen material, with long bits of dialog in-between, endless battle action, and just more of the same boring filler up to the very end.The exaggeration factor is at an almost paroxysm here, and the whole film suspectly reeks of post-colonial guilt and apology, and yet, at the same time, the indigenous Indians are portrayed in the most derogatory fashion, and there's an overwhelming sense of English pride and more globally a heroic superiority of the West, something extremely prevalent in the films of the time.Pretty, pretty terrible.

There's a segment of the population that loves this stuff. Generally speaking it consists of men who like watching other men get nearly naked together and then roll around on the floor while their muscular bodies glisten with sweat and oily residue. Intermingled with lots of brotherly slaps on the back and an unhealthy overdose of deep hearty laughter. It's all very rousing and robust with enough male bonding to satisfy all but the most extreme closet cases. This is a movie that men can introduce to their sons as a rite of manhood, a demonstration of all that is powerfully good about penile worship while brimming over with natural husky maleness.