This is a pretty spiffing adventure yarn, with some classically staged fights, terrific performances.
Comment
06/24/06
Gunga Din (1939)
91 %
Reviews Counted: 23 Fresh: 21 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 8/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 37 mins
Synopsis: George Stevens' classic action-comedy stars Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Victor McLaglen as a trio of carousing British army officers in 1890s colonial India. When the telegraph wires to one of the British outposts are found to have been cut, the three friends, Sergeants Cutter... [More]
Genre: Action/Adventure
Starring: Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, Victor McLaglen, Sam Jaffe, Eduardo Ciannelli
Director: George Stevens
Screenwriter: Fred Guiol
Story: Rudyard Kipling
Producer: George Stevens
Composer: Alfred Newman
Screenwriter: Fred Guiol
Story: Rudyard Kipling
Producer: George Stevens
Composer: Alfred Newman
Reviews
Top Critic Top Critic
Stevens's deliberate pacing serves the comedy remarkably well, although the action scenes are blunted by too-careful compositions and artsy cutting.
11/13/07
As breezy as the pipe playing Seaforth Highlanders marching to battle without a care in the world.
04/01/06
A little jingoistic today, the film is nonetheless a critical standard-bearer of historical adventure flicks, and a quite funny one too.
03/27/05
If PC backlash makes such classics like Gunga Din difficult to revisit, so be it. At this point, there’s no getting around it.
03/07/05
The best one could ever say for it is that its hinges were once merely creaky instead of frozen.
02/10/05
This hugely exciting adventure film was one of director George Stevens' last pure entertainments before he went off to war and came back as a 'serious' filmmaker.
02/07/05
Gunga Din has served as the inspiration for countless adventure yarns over the decades.
12/17/04
Like the poem, the movie is sentimental and corny and totally absurd, and we wouldn't want it any other way. This is grand and exhilarating filmmaking that's hard to resist.
12/08/04
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05/21/03
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