Gunga Din (film)
Encyclopedia
Gunga Din is a 1939
1939 in film
The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...

 RKO adventure film directed by George Stevens
George Stevens
George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank , nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best...

, (very) loosely based on the poem of the same name
Gunga Din
-Background:The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer who saves the soldier's life but dies himself. The last line suggests a deep-down unease of conscience about the prevailing views of natural hierarchies, both in the depicted...

 by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, combined with elements of his novel Soldiers Three. The film is about three British sergeants and Gunga Din, their native water bearer, who fight the Thuggee
Thuggee
Thuggee is the term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers in South Asia and particularly in India.They are sometimes called Phansigar i.e...

, a cult of murderous Indians in colonial British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

.

The film stars Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

, Victor McLaglen
Victor McLaglen
Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was an English boxer and World War I veteran who became a successful film actor.Towards the end of his life he was naturalised as a U.S. citizen.-Early life:...

, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...

, Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....

, Eduardo Ciannelli
Eduardo Ciannelli
Eduardo Ciannelli, sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli, , was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals.-Early life:...

, and, in the title role, Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (actor)
Sam Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur and The Day the Earth Stood Still...

. The epic film was written by Joel Sayre
Joel Sayre
Joel Sayre was an American screenwriter born in Southampton, New York. His most famous screenplay was for Parole. He died on the September 9, 1979 of heart failure....

 and Fred Guiol
Fred Guiol
Fred Guiol was an American film director and screenwriter. Guiol worked at the Hal Roach Studios for many years, and directed Laurel and Hardy's earliest short films, as their famous comic partnership gradually developed during 1927...

 from a storyline by Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...

 and Charles MacArthur
Charles MacArthur
Charles Gordon MacArthur was an American playwright and screenwriter.-Biography:Charles MacArthur was the second youngest of seven children born to stern evangelist William Telfer MacArthur and Georgiana Welsted MacArthur. He early developed a passion for reading...

, with uncredited contributions by Lester Cohen, John Colton
John Colton
Sir John Colton KCMG was an Australian politician, Premier of South Australia and philanthropist.Colton, the son of William Colton, a farmer, was born in Devonshire, England. He arrived in South Australia in 1839 with his parents, who went on the land...

, William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...

, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols
Dudley Nichols
Dudley Nichols was an American screenwriter who first came to prominence after winning and refusing the screenwriting Oscar for The Informer in 1936....

 and Anthony Veiller
Anthony Veiller
Anthony Veiller was an American screenwriter and film producer. The son of the screenwriter Bayard Veiller and the English actress Margaret Wycherly, Anthony Veiller wrote for 41 films between 1934 and 1964.-Career and Awards:Veiller was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay...

.

Plot

On the Northwest Frontier
North-West Frontier Province
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...

 of colonial India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

, circa 1880, contact has been lost with a British outpost at Tantrapur in the midst of a telegraph message. Colonel Weed (Montagu Love
Montagu Love
Montagu Love , also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent. His first important job was as a London newspaper...

) dispatches a detachment of 25 British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

 troops to investigate, led by three sergeants of the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....

, MacChesney (Victor McLaglen
Victor McLaglen
Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was an English boxer and World War I veteran who became a successful film actor.Towards the end of his life he was naturalised as a U.S. citizen.-Early life:...

), Cutter (Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

), and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...

), long-time friends and veteran campaigners. Although they are a disciplinary headache for their colonel, they are the right men to send on a dangerous mission. Accompanying the detail are six Indian camp workers, including regimental bhisti (water-bearer) Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (actor)
Sam Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur and The Day the Earth Stood Still...

), who longs to throw off his lowly status and become a soldier of the Queen.

They find Tantrapur apparently deserted and set about repairing the telegraph. However, they are soon surrounded by hostile natives. The troops fight their way out. Colonel Weed and Major Mitchell (Lumsden Hare
Lumsden Hare
Lumsden Hare was an Irish born film and theatre actor. He was also a theatre director and theatrical producer....

) identify an enemy weapon brought back as belonging to the Thuggee
Thuggee
Thuggee is the term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers in South Asia and particularly in India.They are sometimes called Phansigar i.e...

, a murderous cult that had been suppressed for many years.

Ballantine is due to leave the army in a few days to wed Emmy Stebbins (Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....

) and go into the tea business, a combined calamity that MacChesney and Cutter consider worse than death. Meanwhile, Gunga Din tells Cutter of a temple he has found, one made of gold. Cutter is determined to make his fortune, but MacChesney will have none of it and has Cutter put in the stockade to prevent his desertion. That night, Cutter escapes with Din's help and goes to the temple, which is all that Din had claimed. Unfortunately, they discover that it belongs to the Thugs when the owners return. Cutter creates a distraction and allows himself to be captured so that Din can slip away and sound the warning.

When Din gives MacChesney the news, he decides to go to the rescue. Ballantine wants to go too, but MacChesney points out that he cannot, as he is now a civilian. Ballantine reluctantly agrees to reenlist, on the understanding that the enlistment paper will be torn up after the rescue. Emmy tries to dissuade him from going, but he refuses to desert his friends.

Due to miscommunication between Din and MacChesney, the trio foolishly enter the temple by themselves and are easily captured. They manage to free themselves and take the fanatical guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...

 of the cultists (Eduardo Ciannelli
Eduardo Ciannelli
Eduardo Ciannelli, sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli, , was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals.-Early life:...

) hostage on the roof of the temple. A standoff ensues.

When the regiment comes to the rescue, the guru boasts that they are marching into the trap he has set, with the three sergeants as bait. He orders his men to take their positions, but when he sees that they are unwilling to leave him in enemy hands, he leaps to his death in a pit full of cobras
Indian Cobra
Indian Cobra or Spectacled Cobra is a species of the genus Naja found in the Indian subcontinent and a member of the "big four", the four species which inflict the most snakebites in India. This snake is revered in Indian mythology and culture, and is often seen with snake charmers...

 to remove that obstacle. Thugs then climb the temple and overwhelm the soldiers, shoot and bayonet Cutter. Gunga Din is also bayonet
Bayonet
A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit in, on, over or underneath the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear...

ed, but manages with the last of his strength to climb to the top of the gold dome of the temple and sounds the alarm with the bugle. He is then shot dead, but the British force is alerted and defeats the Thuggee forces. At Din's funeral pyre, the colonel formally inducts Gunga Din as a British corporal and reads the last lines of the Kipling poem over the body:
So I'll meet 'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone --
Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Production

Originally, Grant and Fairbanks were assigned each other's role; Grant was to be the one leaving the army to marry Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....

's character, and Fairbanks the happy-go-lucky treasure hunter, since the character was identical to the legendary screen persona of Fairbanks' father. According to Robert Osborne
Robert Osborne
Robert Jolin Osborne is an American actor and film historian best known as the primary host for Turner Classic Movies, and previously a host of The Movie Channel.-Life and career:...

 of Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...

, when Grant wanted to switch parts, director George Stevens suggested they toss a coin; Grant won and Fairbanks, Jr. lost his most important role. On the other hand, according to a biography of director George Stevens
George Stevens
George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank , nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best...

 by Marilyn Ann Moss entitled Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film, the Cutter role was originally slated for comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 actor Jack Oakie
Jack Oakie
Jack Oakie was an American actor, starring mostly in films, but also working on stage, radio and television.-Early life:...

 until Grant requested the part because it would enable him to inject more humor into his performance, at which point Fairbanks, Jr. was brought on board to replace Grant as Ballantine.

Filming began on June 24, 1938 and was completed on October 19, 1938. The film premiered in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 on January 24, 1939.

California's Sierra Nevada range, Alabama Hills
Alabama Hills
Alabama Hills are a "range of hills" and rock formations near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the Owens Valley, west of Lone Pine in Inyo County, California....

 and surrounding areas doubled as the Khyber Pass
Khyber Pass
The Khyber Pass, is a mountain pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan.The Pass was an integral part of the ancient Silk Road. It is mentioned in the Bible as the "Pesh Habor," and it is one of the oldest known passes in the world....

 for the film. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. reported in a featurette interview on the DVD release that in his travels, he has met several Indians who were convinced the external scenes were filmed on location in Northwest India at the actual Khyber Pass.

The original script was composed largely of interiors and detailed life in the barracks. The decision was made to make the story a much larger adventure tale, but the re-write process dragged on into principal shooting. Some of the incidental scenes that flesh out the story were filmed while hundreds of extras were in the background being marshalled for larger takes.

The movie includes a sequence at the end in which a fictionalised Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, played by Reginald Sheffield
Reginald Sheffield
Reginald Sheffield was an English-born actor.He was born as Matthew Reginald Sheffield Cassan in the St. George Hanover Square District of Surrey near London, to Matthew Sheffield Cassan and Alice Mary Field...

, witnesses the events and is inspired to write his poem (the scene in which the poem is first read out carefully quotes only those parts of the poem that tally with the events of the movie). Following objections from Kipling's family, the character was excised from some prints of the movie, but has since been restored.

Reception

Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

gave Gunga Din a positive review. However, they also noted, that the film was part of a recent Hollywood trend of manufactured screwball comedies, re-releases, remakes, and thinly disguised remakes; comparing Gunga Din to several previous films such as Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Charge of the Light Brigade
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936 film)
The Charge of the Light Brigade is a 1936 historical film made by Warner Bros. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Samuel Bischoff, with Hal B. Wallis as executive producer, from a screenplay by Michael Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, from a story by Michael Jacoby based on the poem The...

, and Drums
The Drum (1938 film)
The Drum is a 1938 British Technicolor film from the book by A. E. W. Mason. The film was directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by Alexander Korda...

.

Awards

The cinematographer Joseph H. August
Joseph H. August
Joseph H. August, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer and co-founder of the American Society of Cinematographers....

 was nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

.

In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

.

American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 Lists
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
    • Gunga Din - Nominated Hero
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
    • "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din." - Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - #74
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated

Influence

Critics have noted that the film has many plot similarities with The Front Page
The Front Page
The Front Page is a hit Broadway comedy about tabloid newspaper reporters on the police beat, written by one-time Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur which was first produced in 1928.-Synopsis:...

which was also written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Fairbanks' character wants to leave to get married but is prevented from doing so by Cary Grant's scheming character. (Grant played the same role in a remake of The Front Page
The Front Page
The Front Page is a hit Broadway comedy about tabloid newspaper reporters on the police beat, written by one-time Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur which was first produced in 1928.-Synopsis:...

called His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur...

the following year.)

The film version of Gunga Din was re-told in a 1962 tongue-in-cheek version reset in the American West and starring all of the members of the Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...

, entitled Sergeants 3, with Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

 in the McLaglen role, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

 taking Grant's part, Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...

 replacing Fairbanks, and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....

 in Jaffe's role.

Gunga Din remains the favorite film of novelist and screenwriter William Goldman
William Goldman
William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.-Early life and education:...

; his first novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

, The Temple of Gold, is named after the location of the film's climax.

The film is referenced in two Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...

 films. In The Party
The Party (film)
The Party is a 1968 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, starring Peter Sellers and Claudine Longet. The film has a very loose structure, and essentially serves as a series of set pieces for Sellers's improvisational comedy talents...

, Sellers plays an Indian actor in the role of Gunga Din, and a parody of the film's climax has Sellers blowing his bugle to warn the British Army to such annoying effect, that his own troops start shooting at him; in The Pink Panther Strikes Again
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
The Pink Panther Strikes Again is the fifth film in the Pink Panther series and picks up where The Return of the Pink Panther leaves off...

, the mad genius Dreyfus quotes the insane guru's speech about mad military geniuses.

Many of the events and scenes from the second Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...

 film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise and prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark . After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone...

, are taken from Gunga Din, including casting a lookalike as the Thuggee leader, although all the original film's plot similarities to The Front Page are omitted in the dark Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 movie.

Cast

  • Cary Grant
    Cary Grant
    Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

    as Sgt. Archibald Cutter
  • Victor McLaglen
    Victor McLaglen
    Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was an English boxer and World War I veteran who became a successful film actor.Towards the end of his life he was naturalised as a U.S. citizen.-Early life:...

     as Sgt. 'Mac' MacChesney
  • Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
    Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
    Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...

     as Sgt. Thomas 'Tommy' Ballantine
  • Sam Jaffe
    Sam Jaffe (actor)
    Sam Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur and The Day the Earth Stood Still...

     as Gunga Din
    Gunga Din
    -Background:The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer who saves the soldier's life but dies himself. The last line suggests a deep-down unease of conscience about the prevailing views of natural hierarchies, both in the depicted...

  • Eduardo Ciannelli
    Eduardo Ciannelli
    Eduardo Ciannelli, sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli, , was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals.-Early life:...

     as Guru
  • Joan Fontaine
    Joan Fontaine
    Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....

     as Emaline 'Emmy' Stebbins
  • Montagu Love
    Montagu Love
    Montagu Love , also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent. His first important job was as a London newspaper...

     as Col. Weed
  • Robert Coote
    Robert Coote
    Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.-Biography:Coote was educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex...

     as Sgt. Bertie Higginbotham
  • Abner Biberman
    Abner Biberman
    Abner Biberman , was an American actor, director, and screenwriter...

     as Chota
  • Lumsden Hare
    Lumsden Hare
    Lumsden Hare was an Irish born film and theatre actor. He was also a theatre director and theatrical producer....

     as Maj. Mitchell
  • Reginald Sheffield
    Reginald Sheffield
    Reginald Sheffield was an English-born actor.He was born as Matthew Reginald Sheffield Cassan in the St. George Hanover Square District of Surrey near London, to Matthew Sheffield Cassan and Alice Mary Field...

     as Rudyard Kipling
    Rudyard Kipling
    Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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