Franz Marx Gunga din, a betrayer of his own people! The thugges wer fighting against british raiders, nothing else, Gunga Din deserved to be shot.

l_rawjalaurence Let's get the obvious out of the way: George Stevens's film contains many of the orientalist tropes that characterized many of the Hollywood India epics of the Thirties: a hero (Sam Jaffe) in blackface, an unashamedly imperialist message positing the British as the saviors of civilized India against the threat of the Thugs led by the Guru (Eduardo Ciannelli), and a celebration of the British virtues of friendship and loyalty as personified by the American Douglas Fairbanks jnr, and the English-born Victor McLaglen and Cary Grant.On the other hand the film must be looked at in context as a fundamentally American story of the frontier wrapped up in a British fictional form. The Indian forces whoop and charge just like the Native Indians - as represented in Westerns of that time - and the Californian locations (standing in for India) remind us of more recent US history and the need for the settlers to protect their lands (the fact that they stole it off the Native Indians in the first place being conveniently forgotten). GUNGA DIN follows in a venerable tradition of films of similar subject-matter produced by most of the major Hollywood studios, including CLIVE OF India (MGM, 1935), LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER (Paramount, 1935), and WEE WILLIE WINKIE (20th Century-Fox 1937), also starring McLaglen.In historical terms GUNGA DIN can also be approached as a warning against the evils of Fascism and dictatorship as personified by the Thugs, who are prepared to fight dirty at all costs to secure their aim of ruling the whole of India. It is only due to Gunga Din's selfless act of devotion to the British in alerting the troops as to the Thugs' plans that the colonial army is actually saved.In structural terms, George Stevens's film contains everything - plenty of swash and buckle at the beginning and end, some moments of pure comedy involving Grant, McLaglen and the luckless Sergeant Higginbottom (Robert Coote), a brief love-interest sequence with Fairbanks and a youthful Joan Fontaine, not to mention an inspiring end where Rudyard Kipling (Reginald Sheffield) crawls out of the tent canvas to pen the famous poem that provides the inspiration for the entire work. In short, there is something for just about everyone here.

Minerva Breanne Meybridge What all the critics of this movie today fail to understand the Wright brothers didn't make a Stealth Fighter or a Boeing 747. Steve Jobs' first computer wasn't an iPhone 6 Plus. Bill Gates didn't start out by making Windows 8 (thank God!). Teenagers today look at the original King Kong and call it stupid and amateurish. But when it came out, audiences were in awe. When Al Jolson first sang in the Jazz Singer, people couldn't believe that there could ever be such a thing as a talking picture. And, when Captain James T. Kirk, in 1966, first used his communicator, no one ever thought that such a thing was possible—a box that you hold in your hands that works like a telephone without wires. Today, "communicators" even come with built-in cameras, a built in televisions, miniature computers and pinball machines, not to mention the entire wall of maps from AAA, along with a little person inside to talk to if you get lonely.Gunga Din (pronounced Gunga Deen) is a story of camaraderie, not war. Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. were huge box office draws back then (yes, boys and girls, even bigger than Leonardo DiCaprio) and people went to their movies to see them. Back then, people didn't go to the cinema to be educated, to watch Lincoln or Silkwood. They didn't want the reality of Transformers. They wanted to get away from reality. They got all the reality they needed from the newsreels that came after the cartoons. They were about to enter World War II. More than half of the men would be shipped overseas to fight Hitler and many would never return.Gunga Din was a fun picture. It didn't matter if was sent in India or Brazil. As with the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it was about the lives of the main stars and how they interacted with each other. Watching it, I could only feel saddened by the thought that everyone involved in that film is now dead. Joan Fontaine was the last survivor. Cary Grant was simply stand out. He always was. I mourn the loss of all of them, even the bad guys. And I thank them for the legacy they left, which became a stepping stone for future film makers and actors to build upon.

Philajeff Our local library showed this film tonight. Why? Gunga Din has got to be the most boring, unfunny old movie I have ever seen. The action scenes are probably the funniest part of the movie (but I don't think they were intended to be). It's always like 200 people against the 3 sergeants but of course the 3 sergeants always manage to triumph over the stumbling,keystone cop-like (supposedly dangerous) Indian forces. The acting is wooden, the plot thin. But worst of all, it's just boring. I think half the audience walked out tonight before it ended (why didn't I?) leaving a couple of older men who laughed uproariously throughout the film. Rename this film - Gunga Dim!