Gunga Din

Rating:
Summary: The Best Action Film EVER!
Review: The first time I saw this film, my father took me to an old cinema (that showed old films on Saturday afternoons) about twenty five years ago. I feel fortunate to have seen this film in an actual theater (Great father and son film). I have seen many movies since, but nothing has come close to "Gunga Din" My favorite actor has always been "The Duke" . John Wayne has made many great films (Stagecoach, Red River, The Searchers, Hondo, Big Jake, True Grit, etc, etc, etc...) These great films also have to take a back seat to "Gunga Din" There has to be some type of legal or estate "tie ups" to prevent this film from being distributed on DVD and VHS. No one can be that stupid as to overlook this film. I've seen a lot of great reviews on Amazon.com, and it's good to know there are others out there who want this film on the market NOW!

Rating:
Summary: An unbeatable adventure...and a killer comedy
Review: This 1939 adventure classic rivals the Swiss Army knife for sheer utility: under director George Stevens' sure hand, "Gunga Din" spins a heady mix of adventure, comedy, and (dare I say) drama from the few strands of a Kipling poem, and establishes a hugely influential model in the process. It's a movie that rewards both the serious cineaste and the Saturday matinee escapist, a prototype for the Lucas and Spielberg adventure epics of the '70s, and an enduring model for the classic buddy picture. Why, then, does it remain in home video exile?

Having grown up watching this on New York's "Million Dollar Movie," then airing on an RKO-owned TV station and thus dominated by the erstwhile studio's earlier hits, I was oblivious to the abrupt edits and grainy image quality already creeping into the televised prints. It was enough to savor Cary Grant's loopy, comic performance (as Archibald Cutter, arguably the closest he ever got onscreen to his true working class identity as Archie Leach), Doug Fairbanks, Jr.'s virtuous elegance, Victor McLaglen's signature bluster, and Sam Jaffe's soulful valor. By the time the veddy British colonel (Montagu Love) recited Kipling's title poem as an elegy for a fallen hero, you couldn't be sure if the print really had gotten that murky, or if your vision was blurred by the tears unleashed by the shameless (and highly effective) sentiment of the scene.

Flash forward to the '70s and Los Angeles, when the feisty Z Channel, a cable upstart actually programmed by movie buffs, wanted to air the movie. They approached the director's son, George Stevens, Jr., about finding a better print, perhaps one closer to the original release. Stevens the younger reportedly gave them more than they could have dreamed for--access to the director's own print, which included footage never theatrically exhibited. Turns out that Stevens had shot footage that violated a curious proviso, imposed by the Kipling estate, that no attempt be made to dramatically portray the writer himself.

What to do, then, with the several key shots, during the exposition and again during that final, tear-jerking scene, with the mustachioed, bespectacled 'journalist' who, while unnamed, was clearly intended to be ol' Rudyard himself? Sadly, the only practical solution was the cutting room floor or, in the case of that final shot, which showed the Kipling figure shoulder to shoulder with the surviving principals, to blow up the negative and crop the offending character from the frame.

With the loan of the director's print, however, the Z Channel and its subscribers got to see a version of "Gunga Din" that solved the narrative hiccups that had plagued the movie for 30 years. Stevens' beautifully-shot, sun-drenched images of his reimagined sub-continent were immaculate, convincingly conjuring its desolate beauty in Southern Californian locations (largely in the Simi Valley, if memory serves). The fluid editing, terrific stuntwork, and, of course, rapid-fire wisecracks of Grant, Fairbanks, and McLaglen underline an early fight sequence (an ambush by Thugs while the soldiers are searching a seemingly abandoned village) as THE blueprint for Indiana Jones, Butch and Sundance, and the "Lethal Weapon" pictures. (As for racial stereotypes, script writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur weren't reactionaries; their fanatical assasins, based on historical fact, seem less far-fetched in the context of recent fundamentalist radicalism than they may have 20 years ago, while the title character, as portrayed by Jaffe, anchors his comic naivete with the gravity of his devotion and glimmers of fatalism.)

I managed to tape an airing on my Beta machine, and subsequent viewings made clear to this older, presumably more film-savvy buff what had been intuitive to the wide-eyed eight-year-old. This was, and is, a wonderful movie. In a year famously regarded as the high water mark for Hollywood's "golden age" of studio-produced magic, "Gunga Din" still stands as a worthy peer to the year's better-served, more easily obtained classics. Whatever legal hurdles presently block its release, "Din" almost certainly survives in a superb print.

Now, who's going to have the taste, not to mention commercial wisdom (and it would be that) to bring this back to life on DVD? You might even tempt no less a light than Spielberg to 'fess up and salute the source, much as Lucas did for the Criterion edition of Kurosawa's 'The Seventh Samurai.' Come to think of it, perhaps Criterion would be the logical candidate to restore a '30s adventure masterpiece to vivid glory.

Rating:
Summary: Simply the best -- brisk, witty, endearing, action-filled
Review: This is it -- THE most memorable of Hollywood's high-water action epics; yeah, I love "Captain Blood" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood"; sure, there is nothing like "The Prisoner of Zenda" (with Ronald Colman) for sheer derring-do and slapdash romantics but . . . "Gunga Din" says and does it all -- with a broad touch of screwball, bravado, wit, camaraderie, brashness, exuberance and downright pleased as punch with itself fun; it's the only film I can watch beginning to end, more delighted with each viewing and unbelieving that, after two hours, there isn't more; and does it have anything to do with the Kipling poem? Some . . . but does that matter? Not at all; this is a film about the right stuff in British India during an 1880's resurgence of Thuggee (the murderous Kali-worshipping stranglers that Indiana Jones had to contend with in "The Temple of Doom"); Spielberg and Lucas owe a lot to Stevens and "Gunga Din"; as does any director worth his salt who wants to take a good shot at an action film that people will want to sit through over and over. Yeah, "Gunga Din" is broadly acted, the action scenes are probably sped up, the black and white photography gets a little grainy (someone please restore this movie! ), but who cares -- the music, script, direction are sublime; the acting charming; the end is something to get on your feet for. And it's only 61 years old. Let's hope an enlightened studio rereleases ito n video and DVD real soon. Like maybe for the holidays?

Rating:
Summary: KALI!!! KALI!!!
Review: This is THE greatest adventure movie of ANY time. I agree with every reviewer who has pointed out that this movie really ought to be on DVD (and to think its even out of print??? I guess that's because Hollywood doesn't want us to know they've been `homaging' this movie for the past forty years). I remember when I first picked this up...just thinking `hmmm...Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen, can't be all that bad...' I was utterly rapt when I finally watched it. When they find that deserted town and the one prisoner starts calling out `Kaalii!! Kaalii!' and all those figures appear in the hills, MAN OH MAN! After that, your face is inches from the screen! Three brawling British soldiers (Cary Grant, Victor McGlaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) go toe-to-toe with the murderous Thuggee cult in India (years before Indiana Jones knew what a Thuggee was). The action in this picture is stupendous! Douglas Fairbanks Jr. CATCHES a hurled throwing axe and returns it to its owner!! Cary Grant drops a stick of dynamite on a cultist, the guy bends over to pick it up, and EXPLODES! This is inspired by the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name, which concerns a plucky Hindu waterbearer who proves to be the best man of all in the climactic battle sequence at the end. The villainous Guru-head of the Kali worshippers is played with sinister, quiet menace, the heroes are as likable and swashbuckling as you can get, and when young Mr. Kipling reads that poem at the end, you WILL be in tears (manly tears, of course...) This movie is astounding! Great black and white cinematography that really ought to get the digital treatment.