Sinbad the Sailor

Told you I'd be back to the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." with Lisa from Boondock Ramblings again this week!
Today we will enter the world of 1,001 Nights with Sinbad the Sailor. Well, kind of because the movie of the same name from 1947 is about the eighth voyage of Sinbad, but there were only seven told in 1,001 Nights.
 

By RKO Radio Pictures -
http://www.c1n3.org/w/wallace01r/Images/142.html,
Fair use,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43488069

Sinbad's audience has become tired of him telling them about his seven voyages over and over, so he tells them about the one he has just come back from - as the Prince of Deryabar.

Deryabar is a fabled island where the treasure of Alexander the Great is supposed to be hidden.
Sinbad and his friend Abbu salvage a ship called "Prince Ahmed" whose complete crew has died from poisoned water.
Sinbad doesn't only find a glass window looking like the medaillon he's wearing, but also a chart showing the way to Deryabar. When he turns around, however, the chart has disappeared mysteriously.

The mysterious lady Shireen from the Emir of Daibul's harem tries to buy the ship (a baggala, by the way, spelled that way in the subtitles, and I can't tell you how quickly I tired of hearing the word baggala) and of course Sinbad falls for her right away.
When he visits her in her garden later, she tells him of the mysterious and evil Jamal who indeed tries to kill Sinbad right there and then.

If you now wonder why I keep using the word "mysterious", that's on purpose. Everything is very mysterious.
Shireen is acting on behalf of the Emir although you feel she's drawn to Sinbad somehow. Both she and the Emir think Sinbad is the actual Prince Ahmed of Deryabar and will lead them to the island while Sinbad had hoped Shireen knew the way and would travel there with him.
And of course we know Jamal wants the treasure as well, but who is he and where is he now?

Sinbad and his crew travel to Daibul where he abducts Shireen and escapes daringly, but the Emir follows them and they all meet - Sinbad, Shireen, the Emir, and Jamal (who had posed as the ship's barber). Of course, the Emir wants to get rid of Sinbad right away, but Jamal convinces him that it is best if they all work together.
On reaching Deryabar, they find Aga who's living in an empty palace. He tries to show them that happiness can't be found in treasure, but of course that doesn't work with that kind of people.
Although Sinbad admits that he's not Aga's son when the Emir tries to kill him, Aga reveals the hiding spot of the treasure. While the others are busy with the treasure, he also tells Sinbad that he had given his son to sailors in order to protect him and that Sinbad is in fact Ahmed.
It is also revealed that Jamal has intended to poison the Emir  who makes him drink the poison himself. He dies sitting in the treasure. Meanwhile Sinbad has taken off to free his crew on the Emir's ship and they shoot Greek fire at the boat the Emir took to come back with.

Back home Sinbad tries to spread Aga's moral of happiness being in the heart and the head, but his audience is just interested in the gold and jewels he's showing them.

I didn't sound very enthusiastic, did I?
This was the first on-screen appearance of Sinbad the Sailor which pretty much set our image of him as the bold, romantic hero with the irresistible smile.
Bosley Crowther stated in this New York Times article from January 1947 that "it is quite a pleasure - and quite a reminder, too - to watch young Mr. Fairbanks cut loose in a gymnastic role".
He was of course reminded of the senior in his classic "The Thief of Bagdad" from 1924, the smile, the movements, the bravado.

I have to agree with Crowther, however, about everybody constantly talking in a flowery style and there being very little adventure which can make 108 minutes seem very long. I found myself wishing they would finally shut up and do something.
And where are the monsters? Having grown up with a children's edition of 1,001 Nights, I think it's not asking too much if I want to see Sinbad in a fight with a monster, maybe a little one? According to the German commentary, Ray Harryhausen felt the same which inspired him to do his own Sinbad movies, and who could forget the fabulous monsters in those?!

I think the actors didn't really get much opportunity to shine.
Douglas Fairbanks jr. makes a very good romantic hero, no doubt about that.
Maureen O'Hara is beautiful of course.
Anthony Quinn looks very handsome as the Emir.
Walter Slezak made an interesting villain although I don't really see him as a sword wielding assassin.
All that talking, though!

I was a fan of the cloak Sinbad was wearing on the journey, it fell and swung beautifully which I noticed every time he moved.
The costumes were really rich and lovely, and so were the colors of the movie, but the talking ... I really wanted to like the movie more than I did; and who knows, maybe if there had been a monster for me and if the movie had been a bit shorter and there had been more swordplay and a lot less talking ... actually I think I might have liked it a lot better then.

I started watching the movie with the German commentary  (there was no English one) of Dr. Rolf Giesen, a film scientist and journalist and one of the leading German experts on the fantastic film.
He didn't just talk about the movie, but also shared facts about everyone involved, and so far it has been almost more interesting the movie itself, but of course I love watching documentaries.

It's not as if I didn't enjoy any part of the movie at all (beside the cloak 🤣), but it could have/should have been better, so much better.

P.S. They may not fit the "Winter of Fairbanks jr.", but I will be watching the 1940 "Thief of Bagdad" and the first Harryhausen Sinbad next 😉
Give me monsters!
Maybe I will even be tackling the 2 1/2 hours of the 1924 "Thief" eventually.

Angels Over Broadway

I hadn't thought there would be a post today for the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." with Lisa from Boondock Ramblings because I had decided to skip the chosen movie when I saw that Douglas Fairbanks jr. was actually just the narrator.
However, Lisa has changed the movie for today, so I'm here after all.

Today's movie is Angels Over Broadway from 1940.

Fair use via Wikipedia

Charles Engle has embezzled $3,000 to give to his wife, but she has passed them on to the man she really loves. Now his partner wants the money back the next morning, but Charles has already decided to kill himself.
He goes to a nightclub and his generous spending makes everyone think he's a rich man. He also catches the eye of Bill O'Brien who thinks he's the perfect victim to take to a gangster's poker game for a cut. Bill enlists showgirl Nina to help him with luring Charles there.
By now disillusioned and drunk playwright Gene Gibbons has made it to Charles' table after being giving the wrong coat and finding the suicide letter in it.

He persuades Bill to change the plan by taking Charles to the game, but as soon as the gangsters have let him win enough to make him keep playing, Charles is supposed to escape with the money. Bill isn't enthusiastic about the plan, but finally accepts it, with one little addition. If Charles wins more than the needed money, he's supposed to give that surplus to Bill.

Things don't go quite according to plan as Gene, drunk as he is, forgets everything and leaves for home and one of the gangsters discovers the escape plan.
In the end, however, everything works out.
Charles escapes by being arrested, but is set free and can give back the money. Gene goes back home to his wife who has forgiven him. Bill - although beat up by the gangster - and Nina escape as well and find they are in love.

Let's start with my opinion about that plan.
Trust a drunk, no matter how witty, to come up with such a plan.
Did they really think a bunch of gangsters - who don't pull something like this for the first time - would just let an intended mark walk off with thousands of dollars trusting him to "just look in on his drunk friend" and then run down the stairs and disappear?
Did they really expect there to be no consequences at all for the people bringing Charles to the game if he disappeared?
That part of the story is simply too weak for me and I think they all were very lucky to survive this. Also, if I were Bill and Nina, I'd get out of there quickly and not sit down for some coffee. Gangsters have their methods to find people and they are not very forgiving, right?

There's quite a lot of talking in the movie, people persuading one another to do stuff, people talking about the plan, people talking about why people do something.
Four strangers meeting and being teamed up for a little while until they get scattered again in the big city.
I liked the performances of Charles' angels (please note that I didn't succumb to the pun "Charlie's Angels"). Gene was witty, Nina beautiful and emphatic, and Bill showed the right amount of cynicism before showing some heart himself.
I found Charles a bit one-dimensional in his depression, though.
Maybe I'm too much of a cynic myself, but although they all got their happy ending, I'm not sure I would expect that ending to stay that happy. Actually I immediately imagined what would happen to them afterwards.
It is possible, though, that my pessimism was enhanced by being sick when watching the movie and writing this. On the other hand, it shows you that it's not a difficult movie to follow if I could do it with my eyes half shut 😉

Will this movie have a huge impact on your life? I doubt it.
Was it still entertaining, though? Yes, I think so.

The Exile

Surprise! I know you didn't expect a movie post this week from me for the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." which Lisa from Boondock Ramblings does on her blog, but Lisa changed movies, so I'm here after all.

This week's movie is The Exile from 1947. Checking the plot, I was quite sure I had seen it before, but ages ago.
After watching it on YouTube - not in a very good quality unfortunately, but you take what you can get - I knew I had been right although I hadn't remembered everything in detail.

Film poster (fair use via Wikipedia)

The movie is about King Charles II. of England during his exile.
Charles is in exile in Holland waiting patiently for being able to return to his home as King.
When at a market to buy food from what little money he has, he meets Katie who has a tulip farm and runs an inn, but being in debt to her cousin, she's in danger of losing everything.
With "Roundheads" around (a derisive term for supporters of the Parliament after the hairstyle some Puritans wore at the time as opposed to the Royalist Cavaliers), Charles decides to cut his hair short and hide with Katie as a worker both on the farm and in the inn.

Then a man claiming to be the King turns up and stays at the inn.
Another guest is Countess Anabella, a former lover of Charles. She brings him a gift from the French king, a music box which Charles gets pawned the next day to pay off Katie's debt. Katie becomes jealous of Anabella and dismisses Charles before he can give her the good news. When she meets Anabella once more, though, who tells her about it, she eagerly waits for Charles to return. When he turns up again, she falls into his arms and they kiss for the first time.

Meanwhile, Colonel Ingram has come from England to find Charles and kill him, but as he hasn't seen him for years, he doesn't recognize him, but asks him to spy for him instead.
When the false King comes out of his room, Ingram thinks he's the real one and tries to kill him upon which the man admits that he is an actor without work who has pretended to be Charles to swindle his way to a room and food.
Charles tells Ingram to look at him and asks if he doesn't know a Stuart when he sees one.
As more Roundheads arrive, Charles escapes barely by taking the actor's horse when the Roundheads pull him off it, but not before telling Katie he will be back the next day. Much to Katie's surprise, Ingram tells her who Charles really is.
She follows Charles to a windmill for hiding, here they announce their love for one another. Ingram and his men have followed Katie, however, so Charles sends her away and draws attention to himself.
He and Ingram have a sword fight in the windmill and when Ingram's sword breaks, Charles throws his own sword away  and they wrestle during which Charles pushes Ingram to his death.
By now Charles' followers have arrived and he is informed that England wants him to come back without any conditions - God save the king.

Now what will become of Katie's and Charles' love?
His advisor tells him that he belongs to the country, not himself.
Katie and Charles talk, but they know they can't be together. It's a very sad and romantic farewell with a last desperate embrace before King Charles II. steps outside to meet his people.

What do you know about Charles?
When his father, Charles I., was executed in 1649 under Cromwell and the Parlamentarians (I can't help hearing the Monty Python song which has been my cell phone alarm clock tone for a long time), he indeed had to flee the country and spent years in exile.
After Cromwell died, his son Richard took over, but resigned shortly after. Finally a new Parliament asked Charles back to reinstate the monarchy - therefore the term Restoration for this time - after he had made several promises including cooperation with the Parliament.
Again I can't help hearing a song, this time from "Horrible Histories" - "The King of Bling".



Indeed, Charles is also known as "The Merry Monarch", not only because he lifted Puritan restrictions, but because pleasure was an important keyword during his reign, very much including his own which for example shows in the number of his illegitimate children (most of them acknowledged) with his many mistresses, official and unofficial, while he didn't have any children from his marriage.
So yeah, it doesn't sound as if he would have loved Katie forever 😉
I'll leave it to you to look him up if you want to know what else he did and how good a king he was because that would really lead too far here. It's quite the story including the Great Fire of London.

To the movie itself.
It was based on the 1926 novel "His Majesty the King" by Cosmo Hamilton which you can read here if you feel the need. Douglas Fairbanks jr. bought the rights to the novel in 1941. After returning from World War II, he founded his own film studio, The Fairbanks Company.
"The Exile" was announced to be the studio's first movie.

I'm not very demanding in regards to movie quality in image and sound, but I really wish it would have been better because the movie would have been even more fun.
Yes, fun. Don't take it as a history lesson because you will be disappointed, just take it as a fun movie for being "adventuresome, romantic and humorous", just as announced by the "producer-actor". Don't complain about the costumes not being perfect for the period, just look at how good our hero looks in them. He definitely does, you know, and this is the right movie to develop a crush on him if you don't have one already (which is one reason why I wish the quality had been better).
I'd say he did his father proud jumping through windows and on horses, sword fighting, and smiling irresistibly - and the torn shirt after the final fight ... 'nuff said.
The movie feels very much like a homage to Fairbanks sr. which I feel is helped by it not being filmed in color despite Fairbanks jr.'s wishes, and the icing on the cake is that the son used the sword of the father which was given to him by his associate in The Fairbanks Company who had worked with the senior and had owned the sword since 1930.
Oh yeah, and by the way, not just producer-actor, Fairbanks jr. actually co-wrote this movie. As mentioned before, he was an Anglophile, and he isn't the only one who thought Charles II. made for a good story.

Some say the movie is moving at a snail's pace, too much talk, too little action, but I wasn't bored at all.
If you want a slow story about Charles II., try "Royal Escape" by Georgette Heyer. As much as I love my Heyer books, as much I have to agree with one reviewer "He flees and flees and flees ....". I'm digressing, sorry.

So the set (all built on soundstages) looked quite artificial at times, especially the strange trees without any branches around their trunks, the trees with the glued on (?) blossoms or the tulips, but hey, so what? I found that more amusing than annoying and in some scenes it had something dreamlike, especially if there's fog.

So the love story isn't a wild, passionate one, but more on the tender side. I didn't mind that because it was clear from the beginning that there wouldn't be a happy ending for them.
Was Countess Anabella more fun? Well, she would have been, wouldn't she? Katie was a hard working young lady worrying about her debt, Anabella looked much more like one of the ladies Charles could have had a party with, and still he fell for Katie. I actually thought that was rather sweet.

Now I could try to talk about the mood director Max Ophüls (credited as Opuls in his US films) created with his takes, but I think it has been done much better already in some of the sources I added to this post. Why did Maria Montez get top billing? See the sources. Why did the movie have two different endings for the US (a shorter one) and elsewhere? See the sources. Both endings are included on YouTube, by the way.

Time to wrap this up.
If you are in for a bit of adventure and fun with a splash of romance thrown in, go for it and watch The Exile. I put it on my re-watch list myself.
What a pity it's not available on DVD!


Selected sources:

Wikipedia articles on The Exile and Charles II.

The Cairns Post, Sept. 10, 1946, page 6

Showmen's Trade Review, May 10, 1947, page 39

The Exile on IMDb

Meher Tatna: Restored by HFPA - "The Exile" (1947), posted on "Golden Globes", June 28, 2022

The Exile: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Carries on the Legacy of His Father, posted on "Prince of Hollywood", June 5, 2016

The Exile on Letterboxd

The Young in Heart

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." on her blog and I said I'd join her if I'd get the chance to watch the movies.
For today she chose "The Young in Heart" from 1938 which happens to be on YouTube, actually several times, so here we go.

Australian poster (public domain
AUS/US via Wikipedia)

Meet the Carleton family.
Anthony "Sahib", the father, a former actor claiming to have served in India. His wife "Marmy". Their son Richard and their daughter George-Anne, both looking for wealthy spouses.

Things don't look too bad at the French Riviera. Richard is engaged to Adela, the daughter of a former American senator. His father has managed to cheat the senator out of $4,500 at poker. George-Ann has a Scottish suitor, Duncan. Sadly he doesn't have any money, though, so he's not eligible.
Unfortunately, the police finds out about this family of con artists, they take the check back, tear it up, and tell the Carletons to leave town if they don't want to get in trouble. The senator even pays for the train to get rid of them
What now?

On the train to London, George-Anne meets an old woman named Miss Fortune and swindles her way into her first class compartment right away. Hearing that she has a big house and money, the family charms her with their stories.
When the train derails, they help Miss Fortune to safety. On saying goodbye, she asks George-Anne if they wouldn't like to be her guests for a while. While the lonely lady is happy to have found friends, George-Anne suggests to the family they should be acting as decent people hoping that they might make it into her will.
So Sahib and Richard head out looking for jobs or rather pretend they are. Meanwhile Duncan, who can't seem to stay away from George-Anne although he doesn't approve of the family and their intentions, sees Sahib's ad in the paper and comes to the house to tell him of a possible position as a car salesman for "The Flying Wombat". To make sure he doesn't mess things up, George-Anne insists on Sahib taking the job.
Richard, too, gets himself a job sorting mail at an engineering firm where he immediately falls for the secretary Leslie. They get along wonderfully until she finds out about the family's plans.

Spending time with Miss Fortune, however, the Carletons grow more and more fond of her, but none of them wants to admit it to the others thinking they are still after the inheritance.
Also Sahib proves to be so good at his job that he's appointed sales manager of his branch making enough money of his own.
Unfortunately, Anstruther, Miss Fortune's lawyer and a friend of her former fiancé who had left her his fortune, has found out what the Carletons are and advises Miss Fortune to get rid of them. She, however, won't hear anything of it, instead she tells him to draw up a new will with them as the beneficiaries. When George-Anne tells the family about it, they don't seem all that happy, but they still don't admit to each other how they are feeling about Miss Fortune by now.
Leslie and Duncan have already noticed a change in them - Richard, for example, has decided to go to engineering school which tells Leslie he may not just want to be an heir after all.
When they go out celebrating with Miss Fortune, she suddenly collapses. The Carletons wait outside her sick room worrying.
Miss Fortune calls on Anstruther to make sure the new will is signed, but he quite smugly informs the family that there won't be any money after all, in fact even the house will be gone if she will survive.
Now Marmy surprises everyone by saying that they don't want any money and Sahib adds that Miss Fortune will never have to worry as long as she lives because they are going to be taking care of her.

The ending shows the young people married and everyone including Miss Fortune living together in the Carletons' new house - happily ever after, no doubt 😉

"The Young in Heart" is based on the originally serialized novel "The Gay Banditti" by I.A.R. Wylie. I had never heard of her before, but over 30 movies were made based on her work in almost 40 years.
The novel, however, did not have a happy ending, Miss Fortune dies. Test audiences didn't react well to that, so Selznick recalled everyone to film the more positive ending. That also explains why it seems to be a bit rushed compared to the rest of the movie.

On YouTube, the movie is both in black/white and in colorized versions. I chose to watch it in black/white myself which I think works better for the atmosphere, but that's just my personal opinion.

It is a cute movie. Miss Fortune is such a sweet old lady opening her house and heart to the Carletons in such faith that those "hard as nails" con artists simply can't help growing to love her and change their ways gradually.
That she doesn't even lose her faith in them upon hearing about their plans, makes you think she's either very naive or she sees something in them that they only just now start to see themselves, but can't even admit to one another.

I really like the performances, too - although I have to admit that Marmy sometimes got on my nerves a bit, but that has more to do with her lines than the performance.
There's only one thing I can't seem to agree on with other viewers, if they mentioned him at all, that is. I absolutely hated the character of Duncan, right from the start, and that didn't just have to do with the terrible Scottish accent (rolling the r is not enough!). When he called Adela "very ugly and very stupid", he had lost me. She may have been a naive young lady, but putting a pair of glasses on a pretty girl doesn't make her very ugly and it doesn't make her plain as I read elsewhere, and I'm not just saying that because I wear glasses myself. I told myself that this was a 1938 stereotype, but he kept being rude and condescending throughout the movie. I think the only scene I thought he was okay was when he apologized to Miss Fortune for getting Richard drunk.
This paragraph being so long, tells you how much I despised him 😂 I wonder if he was the same in the novel and if the two marriages were even mentioned.

I think I liked Miss Fortune best of them all. She really has a few very sweet scences, for example when she cares for the drunk Richard telling him she has been intoxicated herself before and how someone with a little puppy helped her then which makes him go and look for the perfect puppy for her - just to ingratiate himself with her of course, at least he still thinks so himself at the time.

A short word on the Flying Wombat, an amazingly futuristic car which was "played" by the "Phantom Corsair", a prototype automobile which never went into production after the designer died in a car accident in 1939.
The car is now in the National Automobile Museum in Reno.
I don't drive and not that many cars can get me excited, but this is a real beauty.

If you don't know the movie yet and want to watch it, I'm sorry if I told you too much, but it's still worth it, promise!

The next two weeks I won't be able to join in as I don't have a way to watch the chosen movies, but I'll be back the week after that.

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)

The Prisoner of Zenda

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." on her blog and I said I'd join her if I'd get the chance to watch the movies.
For today she chose "The Prisoner of Zenda". I had heard of the movie so often, but can't remember ever having watched any of the different versions. That doesn't mean much, though, because I'm sure I don't remember every movie from my childhood and this kind of movie would have been very much our TV food from that time.

Public domain via Wikipedia

Lookalikes are a popular trope in books and movies. That can be a "doppelgänger" (also spelled "doppelganger") from the spirit world - from the German "Doppelgänger" which translates as "double goer" - or just someone who looks very similar to another person. From my experience, it is often used in the first way in English, but in German it's more often just a lookalike.
Being very versatile, the doppelgänger trope is used in horror, thrillers, comedies, adventure, and more.

Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" is an adventure novel from 1894 and has inspired more than one adventure film, but also parodies.
This post is about the 1937 version which is regarded to be the best one and also the one with Douglas Fairbanks jr. in it. Actually, he wanted to play the lead, but lost the double role to Ronald Colman, instead he was offered the part of a villain which didn't get as much screen time, but looks as if it had been more fun to play.

So - what's the movie about? That's a bit confusing.

Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll is in the small kingdom of Ruritania (according to the book, in the movie they just show on a map that is somewhere between Vienna and Bucharest) on a fishing trip. Upon entering the country, he's already noticing strange reactions from the people around him, but only when he happens to encounter the soon-to-be king Rudolph in the woods, accompanied by his two of his men, Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, he understands as he's the spitting image of the king, except for his beard. They discover that they are very distant cousins and Rudolph invites Rassendyll for a night of drinking.

Unfortunately Rudolph's half-brother Michael, who is after the throne, has drugged him to make sure he won't be in time for the coronation, and Sapt persuades Rassendyll to take his place to prevent Michael from becoming King.
Sapt and Fritz take the sleeping Rudolph to a hiding place and instruct Rassendyll for the coronation.
When they come back for Rudolph afterwards, however, they find he has been abducted by Michael's henchman Rupert of Hentzau (played by Fairbanks jr.) who seeks every opportunity to use the situation for his own gain. That means Rassendyll will have to keep on impersonating Rudolph.

Things have become even more complicated by his meeting Princess Flavia at the coronation who is supposed to marry Rudolph. She had never taken a liking to him before, but now she falls in love with Rassendyll - believing it is the King who has changed since she met him last years ago - and he with her.

Michael's mistress Antoinette, who knows that he would have to marry Flavia if he were to take the throne which obviously doesn't make her happy, decides to help the King in exchange for Michael's life and makes a plan to let his men into the castle of Zenda where Rudolph has been taken by now.
However, Michael surprises Rupert trying to seduce Antoinette, they start fighting and Rupert stabs him. Antoinette breaks down over Michael's body and her words alert Rupert about Rassendyll being in the castle.
Rupert confronts him and offers to kill Rudolph, Sapt, and Fritz, so only he and Rassendyll will hold the secret and can rule together, but Rassendyll declines. They end up in a sword fight as is expected from a swashbuckler film, but Rassendyll manages to lower the drawbridge for the King's men which forces Rupert to escape with a daring jump into the moat.

Source: Kevin's Movie Corner

Is there a happy ending? No, sorry. The King takes his rightful place back and Rassendyll returns to England - without Flavia who decides to stay behind with a broken heart, but her eyes on her duty to the country.

I know that many people love this movie, I have read rave reviews with full marks for performance, story, and action.
Now I don't see it on my list of regulars. It was fun, I liked it, but I didn't love it.
Maybe Ronald Colman was a bit too old for my idea of the swashbuckler. Although there is nothing to complain about his performance of both characters, I could see him more as the King than Rassendyll.
However, I might just have been captured by the two younger men, Rupert and Fritz (Fairbanks jr. and Niven), and am therefore a bit unfair to him.
What is it about a lock of hair hanging over the forehead of a good-looking young villain (Rupert) or an impish little smile on the lips (Fritz)? I felt like 13 and pining all over again for a second, and without those two, I might actually have felt a bit bored as there was a lot more talking than action. Maybe I would have liked the movie better if it had been a little shorter and, hm, snappier?

You know, I might just have to watch it again after all sometime, just to see if I will still be feeling the same way about it then.
And forgive me if this post seems a bit rushed, it had been a spontaneous decision to do this one.