Today I watched the old movie “Gunga Din” for like the trillionth time. And it has all the same silly things going on every time I see it. The gags are telegraphed, the sentiment is slapped on with a cement trowel, the improbabilities are piled to the sky. You name it.
But watching the three leads; Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. go through their paces as Kipling’s three sergeants is a never-ending treat that I can watch several times a year probably until they finally bury me. It’s a joy to behold.
And the picture works as both a comedy and an adventure story. And the supporting cast (including an elephant named Annie) provide plenty of support and opportunity for our heroes to search for treasure, destroy British Army discipline, romance the girl or save the day. And you know, I think I like the fact that even when it was being made, the British Raj was already a sore point for the social justice types but this movie plays up the “white man’s burden” aspect of the story even more than needed to match the historical era.
Sam Jaffe’s Gunga Din really is a minor role right up until the critical juncture in the story where he saves the day. But he does give the regimental bhisti his due. And the actors portraying the army officers and the officious Bertie Higginbotham, all acquit themselves with the expected amount of British bluster.
So, what makes this movie fun? Despite the well-acted lead characters, I think the success of this movie is thanks to the unflagging action, both comic and adventure. The heroes are constantly fighting savage tribesmen, jumping off cliffs into rivers, breaking out of jail by means of elephant powered building demolition and fighting their way through a saloon full of Scottish highlanders. They only slow down when poisoning Bertie Higginbotham at an engagement party. Armies of strangling Thuggees are no match for these soldiers three as they roll out their “three musketeers / all for one and one for all” routine to frustrate the Thug Guru’s master plan to defeat the British and restore India to the greatness it had known before Alexander the Great had slapped it around in the fourth century BC.
So, I have to state which of the three sergeants is my personal favorite. Now Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s Sgt. Ballantine is never in the running. He’s the romantic lead and thereby much abused by his fiancée’s humiliating attentions. And despite the excellent work done by Cary Grant as the ebullient Sgt. Archibald Cutter I have to give the win to Victor McLaglen’s Sgt. MacChesney. Just on the strength of the facial expressions that he manages when the Colonel confronts him with the prospect of Bertie Higginbotham replacing Ballantine, I’d have to give him the prize. But there are just so many great scenes where he steals the show. Even pleading with an elephant using “baby talk” to get it to take medicine always cracks me up. And it really is McLaglen with his hand in the elephant’s mouth.
So why can’t they make movies like this anymore? I don’t think it’s the actors. There are plenty of those who could perform these parts. It’s the writers and directors. Either they can’t or won’t give us good stories. Maybe the producers just won’t allow them. But whatever it is, that’s where we are. And I can live with that. I have my DVD and it’ll last for longer than I will.
“Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.”
Rudyard Kipling