Gunga Din (1939)

Set in 1880 Colonial India, three sergeants (Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) of the Royal Engineers are assigned to investigate why there has been no contact with a British outpost. Cut telegraph lines are suspected. They discover the outpost has apparently been abandoned but they also discover Thuggees, a murder cult thought to have been dissipated 50 years ago. Loosely based on the poem by Rudyard Kipling and directed by George Stevens (GIANT). This rousing action/adventure film remains enormously popular and a good example of Hollywood's "Golden Age" film making at its best. Though I'm not as enamored of the movie as many are, it's a solid entertainment though the behavior of the three protagonists (Grant, McLaglen, Fairbanks Jr.) is more like adolescents than grown men but I suppose that's part of the film's appeal. It's a "boys adventure" movie and the only woman (Joan Fontaine) in the film is an anemic presence. Still, there's an undeniable scent of Colonialism hovering over the film. Except for Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe) and the evil Thuggees, the indigenous people are minimalized and, of course, the "good" Indian sacrifices himself for the white Colonials. Clearly, an influence on Spielberg's INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. With Robert Coote, Eduardo Ciannelli and Abner Biberman.