Fascinating. Intriguing. Wonderfully physical. Daft as a brush. Politically incorrect. A pleasure. Three Musketeers. Not a Cary Grant movie.
Even if the movie weren't good, it would have you with the wonderful early battle seqeuence in the Indian town. As it is, 'Gunga Din' is excellent, and in all likelihood the pre-eminent adventure romp of all the films I've seen to date. That's right, it is an 'adventure', which of course is a genre they don't make anymore. (John Dickson Carr declared adventure stories to be impossible post-WWII, and he was mostly right).
So, 'Gunga Din', a legend amongst historical romps and one of the more unusual Cary Grant movies, and one which also features Douglas Fairbanks junior (never seen him in a film before) and Victor McLaglen (ditto) as well as Sam Jaffe as the eponymous water carrier (double ditto). If I haven't already mentioned political incorrectness, then now is the only time to do so, as we get to the casting of Indian characters by actors presumably in blackface makeup and the usual stereotypes in their characterisation. This wasn't unusual and is best noted as a historical artefact. Far worse things have happened in films historically than a bit of makeup after all, and at least in this case Gunga Din is ultimately the hero of the piece. Right, back down to business!
'Gunga Din' is a 'Three Musketeers' movie by any other name, set in colonial India against the backdrop of a Thuggee cult outbreak. Happily this sets the movie up as an effective prequel to 'Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom', a film I consider to be grossly underrated in comparison to the other Indy movies. In this case, our Musketeers are three sergeants (Grant, McLaglen, Fairbanks) in the British army who become embroiled in a Thuggee plot to lure in an army column to a trap and so start a new war. Before, when I said this was a Cary Grant movie, I was being slightly inaccurate; It's actually an ensemble piece and a classic boys own adventure. It's also one of the classic tales of camaraderie, and of heroes almost being sucked away from their vocation by love and marriage. (It's an unfortunate pattern of fiction that heroes have to stop being heroes and leading characters if they want to find love and marriage.)
I could go on and on, perhaps touching on the cheesiness of the Gunga Din closing portions, or the deliciously evil 'guru' leader of the Thuggees, but that's not really my intention not do those aspects represent the most loveable parts of the film. No, the most wonderful part of the film is the interplay between our three leads, bickering and squabbling, and their first massive fight sequence which occurs in the first half hour of the movie. This fight sequence is one of the most fun, beautifully orchestrated and hammy examples of a battle you will ever see on film. It's wonderful, and actually sets an impossibly high precedent for the rest of the movie which pales somewhat in comparison, especially as the three leads are divided against each other after this battle. There is a palpable hunger for another such sequence but it never arrives, substituted for by the siege of the Golden Temple of Kali, and the machinations of the guru. Oh, for more deliciously evil villains in films!
Overall, this is a wonderful adventure, and unparallelled in its physicality and streamlined storytelling. Also, Victor McLaglen is so loveably goofy that you can't help but love the film and his machinations to keep the three together as Fairbanks is almost stolen away by the tea company and Grant by his mania for treasure hunting. Aren't films wonderful sometimes, especially from back when there were still stories to be done? And isn't improvisation wonderful when it pops up in movies? And there we go, another dose of meaningless nonsense here at the Quirky Muffin! Informative? No, but I liked it.
O.
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