Gunga Din

1939

2/4 Stars

Gunga Din is a racist 1930's adventure serial starring Cary Grant. The basic premise is that the murderous Thuggie Cult (this group should be familiar to Indiana Jones fans) has sprouted up in colonial India and it is up to a band of three soldiers- led by Grant- to stop the Thuggie plot to conquer first India, and then THE WORLD.

Pretty cheesy stuff. The action is swashbuckling and fun, with lots of low-budget effects and explosions. Hordes of Indians are killed along the way with impunity.

Enter the title character- Gunga Din- a "water carrier" and "low bred" Indian. Gunga Din dreams of one day becoming a real soldier like the (white) British. Throughout the film, he marches about and pretends to be a real soldier. Grant, and the other "real" soldiers, tend to humor him a bit, but clearly don't take him seriously.

In the end though, Gunga Din proves himself to be worthy of respect- EVEN from the whites. The film concludes with a Kipling poem, bearing Din's name, that has a final line that goes something like: "even though you were from a no-good race and we beat on you like a dog, you had some courage, and I respect that".*

Overall, if one can get past the racist portrayal of the Indians, this is a very standard action movie from this era. The humor is lame, but the overall experience is kind of fun. Be sure to watch for the "terrifying" snake pit, where the strings attached to the snakes are almost as big as the snakes themselves.

* The actual line is slightly less offensive: "Tho' I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"