You're a better man than I am ...

Gunga Din!
That's the final line of Rudyard Kipling's poem "Gunga Din" (first published in 1890 in two newspapers and then in 1892 in a collection).
I know poetry has not been a topic on my blog before, but actually this post isn't about the poem, but about the 1939 adventure film of the same name that was inspired by it.
Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." on her blog and as I happen to own the movie (bought some years ago to add to my Cary Grant movies), I figured I'd join her.

When hearing the name Kipling, you can imagine that this will be a bit controversial, after all both the poem and the movie are set in the time of the British Raj.
Also, given the year the movie was made, you know that there will be brownface for the Indian characters and there will be stereotypes, both for the Indian and the British characters.

Gunga Din is an adventure film about three British sergeants in India - Ballantine (Fairbanks jr.), the romantic one, who is about to give up his military career to get married and go into the tea business, MacChesney (McLaglen), the tough one with the soft spot, and Cutter, the Cockney joker (Grant), who befriends the regimental "bhisti" or water-carrier Gunga Din and wants adventure - and treasure.

Public domain via Wikipedia

When the telegraph connection to Tantrapur is cut, the three friends and some Indian camp workers are sent there to repair the lines, but get attacked by a group of locals in the name of the goodess Kali. They barely make it out with some losses, and when reporting back, a weapon identifies the attackers as belonging to the ancient cult of Thuggee. The superiors agree that the return of Thuggee has to be nipped in the bud and decide to send back a larger force, but without Ballantine whose leave from the army is due soon.
To get rid of Higginbotham, the replacement whom they don't like, Cutter and MacChesney spike the punch at Ballantine's "betrothal dance" with elephant elixir. Higginbotham is indeed unable to join them the next morning and Ballantine agrees reluctantly to take his place, but wants the repairs to be done quickly before his enlistment ends. Before they are done, Higginbotham arrives with relief troops and Emmy, Ballantine's fiancée.

Meanwhile, Gunga Din has told Cutter about having found a temple of gold. MacChesney locks Cutter up to keep him from chasing after the gold, but with the help of Annie, the elephant, Din breaks him out and they head to the temple.
There they discover that the temple belongs to the Thugs. Cutter distracts the Thugs and gets himself caught, so Din can escape to get help.
While Higginbotham sends for backup from the regiment, MacChesney and Ballantine leave immediately for the temple with Din to rescue Cutter although Emmy tries to persuade Ballantine not to go. Of course them rushing in like that gets them captured as well.
They manage to take the guru of the tribe hostage and take him to the roof of the temple where they see how many Thugs are waiting for the regiment to arrive. As they don't want to abandon their guru, however, he kills himself, so they will fight the British.
Cutter and Din get wounded, but gathering his last strength, Din climbs to the top of the temple and blows his bugle before getting shot. That alerts the regiment and they can defeat the Thugs.
At Din's funeral the colonel appoints him a corporal of the British army, which had been Din's dream all along, saying "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

I admit that I struggled putting this together as I didn't want to make it too long, but there is so much happening in the movie I haven't even included, after all it's almost two hours long!
There is action, there is humor, there is drama ... and very little romance. Emmy doesn't stand a chance against the army and Ballantine actually re-enlists for the rescue mission and stays re-enlisted, definitely not what she has dreamt of.

This is a buddy movie. Three lads taking on the world and having adventures. Why does that make me want to slap my thigh and go "Jolly well, old boy, cheerio, pip pip"?
It's probably the "Hollywood Raj" feeling, a term for the English actors living and socializing in Hollywood in the 30s, but also including actors from other countries like Australia, South Africa, and the USA who liked the style. This led to the making of countless "British" movies outside of Great Britain, movies upholding the old stereotypes and values, inspired by British authors. Being strangely Anglophile myself, I get it although I do not condone British imperialism.

Talking about imperialism, the movie was actually banned in parts of India for that reason. I found a post with an article about Gunga Din written for filmindia, and as you can imagine it's not a positive one. It points out all the stereotypes and even remarks on Din's heroic death being exploited to prove that the movie is not Anti-Indian.
However, the comments on the post itself are interesting to read as well as some Indian commenters say that in this day and age, they are able to laugh about it or even enjoy it, but how they understand Indians would feel differently about it back then when India did not have her independence yet.

Obviously, Kipling's poem didn't offer enough content for a whole movie, so they mixed it with some of the stories from his collection Soldiers Three.
In fact, quite a few writers tried their hand at the script and there were several variations until the final result.

Much of the movie was shot at Lone Pine about 200 miles from Los Angeles where they built the regimental site, the village, and the temple, and the director George Stevens took so long that production manager Berman had to set an ultimatum which was funny as he had chosen him over Howard Hawks for being faster.
A lot of the gags, stunts and fight scenes were improvised, something Stevens had learned from being a cinematographer with Hal Roach for Laurel and Hardy comedies.
At nearly 2 million dollars, the movie was by far the most expensive one of its time which was even more unusual given that RKO was not one of the huge studios.

There were also several choices for the cast.
Originally, Grant was supposed to play Ballantine, but he wanted to play Cutter, so Fairbanks jr. was brought in for the role of Ballantine.
For the part of Din, RKO would have liked Sabu, but producer Alexander Korda didn't want to lend Sabu at the time because he prepared for "The Thief of Bagdad", so they tested several actors and decided on Sam Jaffe. Jaffe said that he told himself "Think Sabu" and played the role with his concept of how Sabu would have played it. I admit that I can't see that, but I might be biased by the movies with Sabu that I have seen. Despite playing the man giving the movie his name, Jaffe is only credited in fourth place and he's not even in the film poster!
Joan Fontaine, who played Emmy, was not a star at that time, but she hardly had any screentime, anyway.
Let's not forget Anna May who played Annie, the elephant.

A short word on Thuggee. There are different approaches to the history of Thuggee.
Thuggee - like other words used in English - is derived from a Hindi word, "thagi" in this case which means "deception". Native Indians refer to "Thugs" as "phansigars" meaning "stranglers", you also see the word "thag" used.
A lot of the popular idea of Thuggee (as in Gunga Din and Indiana Jones 2 which has taken a lot from Gunga Din), also as a religious cult, is based on the writings of William H. Sleeman (including "The Thugs or Phansigars of India") who was head of the "Thug Police" in the 1830s.
This is a veritable rabbit hole to dive into - for how long have there been "Thags", was it a hereditary practice within a tribe, was it an orientalist construction to legitimize the British taking over, was there any religious connection at all, was there one "Thug ruler" ... it would be way too long for a post about a movie, but if you are interested in diving into that rabbit hole yourself, I'm going to add some sources.

Now I have talked a lot, but you may want to hear what I think about the movie?
I'm a bit torn and I'm not the only one (even Bertolt Brecht wrote about it!).
The movie is considered a classic and I can understand why, but you can't deny that it is most definitely a product of its time.
If it weren't set in India, with the typical ingredients - the glorifying of the British Empire on one side, elephants, a temple, and murderous cult members in loin cloths on the other - but in a fantasy country, you wouldn't even have to think about it twice.
So yes, there were moments when I rolled my eyes - I have been a professional eye-roller for decades, my eyes muscles are probably the strongest ones I have - but I have to admit that I also couldn't help getting drawn in by this buddy story and enjoy some of it.
You will have to make your own judgement. If you do, let me know!

Sources:
Kipling Society: Gunga Din - the poem and readers's guide
Film historian Rudy Behlmer's commentary on the 2004 DVD (highly recommended!)
Memsaab Story: The Gunga Din tamasha, posted January 31,2010
Kevin Jack Hagopian (New York State Writer Institute): Film Notes - Gunga Din
Gunga Din (film) on English Wikipedia
Back to Golden Days - an old Hollywood blog: Film Friday "Gunga Din", posted December 11, 2016
Park Ridge Classic Film: The Making of Gunga Din, posted January 14, 2014

Selected sources on Thuggee:
Darren Reid: On the Origin of Thuggee: Determining the Existence of Thugs in Pre-British India. In: The Corvette 4, 2017, 1, pp. 75 - 84 (Open Access)
Sagnik Bhattacharya: Monsters in the dark: the discovery of Thuggee and demographic knowledge in colonial India. In: Pallgrave Communications 6, Art.nr. 78(2020) (Open Access)
Kim A. Wagner: The Deconstructed Stranglers. In: Modern Asian Studies 38, 2004, 4, pp. 931 - 963 (Closed Access)