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Purely Joyful Movie!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Soldiers Three is a 1951 black and white war drama that is a pale imitation of Gunga Din (1939). How on earth you could try to re-make Gunga Din is questionable enough, but consider that producer Pandro Berman worked on the original. What was he thinking?Stewart Granger, David Niven, Cyril Cusack and Robert Newton star, but none of them come anywhere near the talent on display by Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Sam Jaffe.Granger made far better films (King Solomon's Mines, Scaramouche) as did Newton (my favorite Long John Silver), and of course Niven who won Oscars and Golden Globes for many memorable performances.Here is a film that should be avoided.

Based on another Rudyard Kipling story, the parallels between this and the better known Gunga Din film are too obvious to ignore. Once again Kipling has three protagonists soldiers as heroes who are three of the most undisciplined soldiers in the Indian army. But are three of the best fighters. Unlike Gunga Din where the heroes are sergeants, these three guys are from the ranks and have been there for many years.Stewart Granger, Cyril Cusack, and Robert Newton are our three privates and they get into all kinds of jackpots. Their colonel is Walter Pidgeon and this whole film is a flashback offered at a club by retired General Pidgeon. After one incident too many he and his adjutant David Niven have the idea to promote one of them to break up the team. It works to some degree.But when Cusack and Newton and many more of their comrades get into a nasty jackpot trying to capture a rebel tribe leader the old team comes together. In fact the rescue of the group by Granger bears a lot of similarity to the climax of Gunga Din. Only this one is played for far more laughs. This military comedy cried for the rough house traditions set by John Ford. Although director Tay Garnett did any number of good action films, the whole military tradition and the comedy would have really been perfected had Ford been at the helm. Irishman Ford did quite well with the British army in India with Wee Willie Winkie.Still Soldiers Three is worthwhile if you're a fan of the three leads.

In part because of the varying reviews here, I just watched this movie. I found this harmless service comedy to be better than I expected, with some great moments. In particular, I enjoyed Stewart Granger as Private Archibald Ackroyd. This movie was filmed not long after he (and his bare chest) stormed the box office in King Solomon's Mines, so it seems odd to me that he was placed in such an obviously low-budget affair as Soldiers Three. In an interview he gave in 1991, just two years before his death at age 80, Jimmy Granger ridiculed this film, but then he ridiculed almost all of his cinema work. Still, he gives a good performance in Soldiers Three as an 18-year veteran of the Colonial Service, rather proud of being labeled "The Queen's Hard Bargain," along with his mates Dennis and Bill. One wishes Granger would have been offered -- or would have accepted -- more character parts. As in The Woman Hater, he is sharp, his timing spot on, and he puts on a passable Cockney accent (coached by Claude Rains, he once reported). Robert Newton as the dimwitted Bill Sykes became less annoying when I realized that he is credited with "inventing" the pirate accent (actually, Yarmouth) when he played Long John Silver in Treasure Island just a year before Soldiers Three. Cyril Cusack, as Irish volunteer Dennis Malloy, gives a solid performance as usual. Of the others in this film, the only one who seems truly out of place is Walter Pidgeon as Colonel Brunswick. He does not seem to know what to do or how to do it, so he bluffs and puffs his lines to perfectly cast "stuffed shirts" David Niven, Frank Allenby, and Robert Coote. I would recommend giving Soldiers Three the once over and in so doing, forget about Gung Din -- and historic reality -- and just enjoy it for what it is.

Soldiers Three is a harmless comedy about three british soldiers serving in India (played by Stewart Granger, Robert Newton and Cyril Cusack). The three are great friends after spending 18 years in the army together. Now the colonel (Walter Pidgeon) has had enough of the unruly fellow, and wants to separate them by making one of them (Granger) a sergeant. Of course, sergeants and soldiers cant get along with each other so Granger tries to get degraded to a soldier again...Gargantuan thrill ride it ain't, you might think. Indeed its nothing special or exciting. Its merely a standard Hollywood studio film of its day, but of course, the standard Hollywood films in 1951 were much more enjoyable than now 50 years later. (at least in my opinion) So this might be worth your time on a lazy tuesday afternoon (If you are not working), just to see a few likable actors like Stewart Granger and David Niven (playing a british officer, a role he fits more than well)