Gunga Din (1939)
A movie with a roaring reputation, but I had trouble getting past its corny humor, and even past its fake British superiority in the wilds of Pakistan.
It does have Cary Grant in it just when his career is reaching true stardom. And it has a young Joan Fontaine, who will blossom the next year in Hitchcock's "Rebecca." (The two will star two years later in the Hitchcock film, "Suspicion," as well.) The pair, however, barely cross paths in the filming.
The big theme here is how the British are cleverly controlling a tribal area of Northwest India (now Pakistan) where the natives are obviously naive and superstitious and the Brits are so good at being good they can joke and be idiots along the way. It's all in fun on some level, a lighthearted adaptation of the epic poem by British poet Rudyard Kipling.
There were actually attempts at a better film originally—William Faulkner began on the script before it ended up in Hecht's able hands, and Howard Hawks was lined up to direct. There are echoes here (good ones) of true screwball comedies, and the transplanted zany humor, mixed with overlong battle scenes and genuine imperialist camp, is weird.
But all of this is if you take it seriously one bit. As a vehicle for some gags and some playful rivalry between a bunch of likable guys on the eve of World War II it fares pretty well. For me the humor ebbed and flowed (it might depend on your age and your background), but the overall arc of events was sometimes grand and fictionally dreamlike. I imagine what early explorers felt coming on beautiful remote lands and the people living there, but having no intention of understanding them, just seeing them (and employing them, literally).
By the end, it doesn't add up. Even the lionizing of the title character, a local who sides with the British in their battles, is a bit hard to swallow. Certainly the evil guru and his murderous minions is offputting with his face painted to look dark. And the empathies for the three main characters are thrown in the air by their antics, their obviously silly military exploits, and by a kind of loyalty to their stuffy superiors that flies in the face of good logic, even in the sanitized reality of this film.
So, Cary and Joan are in my personal pantheon, and I love this period of movies. Even so I couldn't enjoy this movie very well. You might know your tastes and can dive in accordingly.
A movie with a roaring reputation, but I had trouble getting past its corny humor, and even past its fake British superiority in the wilds of Pakistan.
It does have Cary Grant in it just when his career is reaching true stardom. And it has a young Joan Fontaine, who will blossom the next year in Hitchcock's "Rebecca." (The two will star two years later in the Hitchcock film, "Suspicion," as well.) The pair, however, barely cross paths in the filming.
The big theme here is how the British are cleverly controlling a tribal area of Northwest India (now Pakistan) where the natives are obviously naive and superstitious and the Brits are so good at being good they can joke and be idiots along the way. It's all in fun on some level, a lighthearted adaptation of the epic poem by British poet Rudyard Kipling.
There were actually attempts at a better film originally—William Faulkner began on the script before it ended up in Hecht's able hands, and Howard Hawks was lined up to direct. There are echoes here (good ones) of true screwball comedies, and the transplanted zany humor, mixed with overlong battle scenes and genuine imperialist camp, is weird.
But all of this is if you take it seriously one bit. As a vehicle for some gags and some playful rivalry between a bunch of likable guys on the eve of World War II it fares pretty well. For me the humor ebbed and flowed (it might depend on your age and your background), but the overall arc of events was sometimes grand and fictionally dreamlike. I imagine what early explorers felt coming on beautiful remote lands and the people living there, but having no intention of understanding them, just seeing them (and employing them, literally).
By the end, it doesn't add up. Even the lionizing of the title character, a local who sides with the British in their battles, is a bit hard to swallow. Certainly the evil guru and his murderous minions is offputting with his face painted to look dark. And the empathies for the three main characters are thrown in the air by their antics, their obviously silly military exploits, and by a kind of loyalty to their stuffy superiors that flies in the face of good logic, even in the sanitized reality of this film.
So, Cary and Joan are in my personal pantheon, and I love this period of movies. Even so I couldn't enjoy this movie very well. You might know your tastes and can dive in accordingly.