Gunga Din at the Academy

[Lzcutter]

Last night I had the opportunity to see Gunga Din at the Academy last evening. It was a great evening.

It started with another chapter of Buck Rogers starring Buster Crabbe. Buck, Wilma and Buddy are trying to escape Killer Kane's men. Oh noes!!! Buddy gets injured. Buck carries him around, injury and all, like a sack of potatoes. Poor Buddy!
Philip Ahn co-stars as the Tallen, the ambassador from Saturn, helping Buck and company fit the evil Kane. One of Kane's men disagrees with Kane's plans and Kane has him dragged downstairs and turned into a robot. This basically means he gets a bucket put on his head and he loses his memory. If you ever wanted to see what a space ship designed around a roman candle looked like, this is the serial for you. There was a special reception for many guests in the lobby and they started taking their seats during the serial.

We saw trailers for the upcoming Dark Victory as well as Beau Geste and The Rains Came. The cartoon was Thugs with Dirty Mugs, a Looney Tunes starring a bank robbing dog who resembles and sounds like Eddie G. Robinson.

George Stevens, jr spoke briefly about the film and his father. He talked about the night that Stevens won the Oscar for A Place in the Sun. They were riding home after the ceremonies. Stevens, sr was driving (how times have changed) and had the Oscar on the front set between him and his son. George, jr, very excited that his dad had won the Oscar, was going on about it meant the film must really be something. His father quieted him by saying "Let's wait and see what they are saying twenty-five years from now."

George Stevens, jr then introduced Ben Burtt and Craig Barron. Burtt, of course, is the sound designer of Star Wars and other George Lucas films. Barron is a matte painter. He won the Oscar this year for his work on Benjamin Button. Their presentation on the film was just great! They had slides of the sets that were built in Lone Pine including the Temple. To contrast those slides, they showed what the location looked like today. You can go up to Lone Pine (about two hours north of the City of Angels) and visit the Alabama Hills where the film was shot. There are still pieces of the old set buried in the ground. Burtt showed a piece he had dug up a few years back. They had 16mm color, home-movie footage shot by Stevens on the set. This included various stunts and some scenes including the scene where Cary Grant and Sam Jaffe have to cross the rope bridge. In the film, the bridge is above a deep ravine with a river running through it. In reality, it was about five feet off the ground. Barron then showed slides of how the matte work was done. Ben Burtt then talked about the sound that was recorded on location. He was especially interested in the rifle shots from the film. According to the sound log (which they had a still of), most of the sounds for the film were done on location. Burtt played the audio for the rifle shots, which became the template for most rifle shots in RKO films. He then showed how the sound was created. A rifle shot in itself is not very memorable but the ones in the film are. Burtt wanted to figure out how they had got those deep throated rifle shots. He took a camera and a microphone up to the Alabama Hills and experimented with shooting the rifle in the mountains. Voila! The sound he was looking for and used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The presentation was just fabulous.

George Stevens had returned to his seat which was across the aisle from me. The print was a vault print from Warner Brothers and it is in great shape. I don't know what was more fun, watching the film or watching George Stevens watch the film.

Gunga Din had a checkered history on its way to the silver screen. A short silent was made of the poem back in 1911. MGM had several writers working on a script in the late 1920s as the silent era was ending but rights issues with Kipling's family could not be worked out.

In 1936, shortly after Kipling's death, his wife sold the rights to the title to Edward Small's Reliance Pictures. Those rights were eventually taken over by RKO. William Faulkner was hired to write the script. He spent about two months on the project writing a partial treatment and partial script. In his version, Din is a drunk and a gambler with a wife and son. RKO kept looking.

Howard Hawks was originally supposed to direct the film. He brought in two of his favorite writers, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, to work on the script. Their script had little connection to the poem except for the main character, Gunga Din, a brave Indian water-bearer serving the British. Hecht and MacArthur expanded an idea from their play, The Front Page to fit the scenario, the idea of trying to keep the protagonist from leaving and marrying. They also incorporated various elements from Kipling's Soldiers Three[/b].

The project didn't go much further until Pandro Berman, the new studio head, got a hold of it. He replaced Hawks because Bringing Up Baby had opened to disappointing box-office and Berman didn't want the same thing to happen twice. Berman hired George Stevens who was about to start the Marx Brothers film, Room Service.

Stevens immediately hired two new writers, Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol. Sayre had written Annie Oakley and Guiol had penned The Nitwits. Sayre is credited with the idea of making the real-life Indian cult members, the Thuggees, the villians. Stevens wanted the script to have more exterior locations. He wasn't enamored of Hecht and MacArthur's idea of keeping the action inside. He thought it would make for a "dreary'" film. He scouted locations by airplane and decided upon Lone Pine which was use to passing from India in such films as The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

Vic McLaglen was loaned from Fox. Joan Fontaine was hired because Stevens had worked with her in a musical, Damsel in Distress. Cary Grant and Doug Fairbanks, jr were hired to round out the cast. Stevens wanted Sabu for the role of Din but Alexander Korda was in pre-production on Thief of Bagdad and wouldn't loan Sabu out. They tested several unknown Indian actors but had no luck.

Garson Kanin suggested they take a look at Sam Jaffe. Jaffe modeled his look and his audition after Sabu and won the role.

As I mentioned earlier, they went to Lone Pine to make the film. It was, at that time, the largest location camp created for a film. They built the city, a cantonment and parade ground six miles out in the desert. The Hindu Temple in the cliffs was another two miles up the road. Stevens wanted everything to look authentic.

Being an outdoorsman, Stevens rode a horse around the set so that he could quickly get from one locale to another. Stevens claims to have used 1500 actors, several hundred horses and mules, and four elephants for the climatic battle scenes that were filmed on Mt. Whitney. Assistant directors were hidden behind rocks and used field telephones to communicate.

Some of the extras were actual Indians but the majority of extras weren't. They had to be made up to look Indian. This included standing on a wooden turntable, six at a time, and being sprayed with make-up from a 55-gallon tub.

They shot on location for ten weeks in temperatures that ranged from 115 to wintery. On particular dusty days, the crew concentrated on close-ups. The studio threatened to shut the production down more than once. They were worried about the costs and the broad mix of comedy and drama. Stevens, who had been a cameraman for the Laurel and Hardy shorts in the silent days, had the knack for slapstick and comedy down pat.

The film ended up costing close to $2,000,000, making it one of the most expensive of the decade. It was supposed to open in December, 1938 but had to be pushed into early 1939 because of reshoots.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was hired to be the composer for the film. He backed out when he didn't feel he had enough time to score the film properly. Stevens hired Alfred Newman, who finished the rousing score in three weeks.

The Kipling family saw the film in March, 1939 and objected to the scenes with the writer. The studio pulled those scenes fearing the family would stop the film from being shown. When Howard Hughes took over the studio, he removed an additional 25 minutes of footage so that the film would fit on a double bill.

In 1986 the film was restored to its original length, including the Kipling footage. The cinematographer, Joseph August, was originally announced as one of the ten preliminary nominations in the category of Black and White Cinematography but that category was ultimately whittled down to two official nominees, Stagecoach and Wuthering Heights with the Oscar going to Heights.

The film still stands up very well. Cary Grant is a delight in the film and Vic McLaglen is sensational. You can see the direct influence of this film on John Huston's later epic, The Man Who Would Be King.

"Well, its no Indiana Jones. Of course, I don't have my glasses so I couldn't really see it." was one of the comments I heard later that evening in the lobby. I hope the guy finds his glasses and one day comes to understand the influence of this film on action-adventure films like Indiana Jones.

The film with Burtt and Barron delivering their presentation will screen Monday evening in New York City at the Lighthouse International. If you live in NYC or can get there, buy your ticket now. You won't want to miss this. And I hope you don't run into that doofus in the lobby.

[moira finnie]

Omigod! Thanks for writing this account.

"Well, its no Indiana Jones. Of course, I don't have my glasses so I couldn't really see it." was one of the comments I heard later that evening in the lobby. I hope the guy finds his glasses and one day comes to understand the influence of this film on action-adventure films like Indiana Jones.

Oh, it's good to know that the philistines are everywhere

Your venture to the Academy sounds like a trip to heaven! Not only did you get to see one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen on the big screen, but to hear all this about its background from the people who really know what they are talking about--boy, Lynn, all I can say is...I wish I were there to be Ethel to your Lucy.

I've seen that Buck Rogers vs. Killer Kane serial many times (New Yorkers growing up in the late '60s and early '70s know this robots with the "bucket on the head" stuff by heart, thanks to WPIX and their constant reruns).

Questions about Gunga Din:
Did anyone talk about the use of extreme close-ups between Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Joan Fontaine (who reportedly had a major crush on Stevens, as, apparently, did 97% of the women who ever worked with the man)?

I've often wondered if, when Stevens made A Place in the Sun, these beautifully framed images by Joseph August, which seem a bit odd but still compelling in the rambunctious midst of "the boy's life adventure", may have been the template for those enthralling shots of Clift and Taylor in the later film done by cinematographer William Mellor .

If there is a film of Ben Burtt and Craig Barron discussing Gunga Din being shown at Lighthouse International, is it possible that this might be available in dvd form someday?

Do you think that many of the home movies you mentioned shot on location in Lone Pine during the film's production are also included with the dvd of Gunga Din, which also features a good commentary from Rudy Behlmer? I haven't seen that in several years, but remember it as being excellent, with a beautiful print used as well, (at least to my untrained eye).

An overview of the location shoot of Gunga Din is further described here at the Lone Pine Film History month.

[Lzcutter]

M,

Thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate it. As for Buck Rogers, the downside to not going to all the 1939 films being shown is that I don't get to see the entire serial. Luckily, Filmlover has been going and keeps me updated about Buck, Wilma and Buddy.

Sorry, no one addressed the extreme close up issue.

As for the presentation being an extra feature on a DVD one of these days, it's possible. They were filming it for the Academy archives, so a record of it exists.

I hope they used the Warner vault print for the DVD because it really was a beautiful print.

Depending on what happens this week, I may go see *Underworld* with the Alloy Orchestra on Friday night.

[charliechaplinfan]

Thanks for sharing Lynn, I find it all very interesting. I watched this film years ago but remember I enjoyed it immensley at the time. I'm glad you said Victor Maclaglen was sensational, he's someone who has never let me down in a film.

If you go to Underworld let us know your thoughts.

Who goes to the cinema without their glasses

[Lzcutter]

Barstow?????

Really?????

As much as I love Robert O and Alec B co-hosting The Essentials, I call shenanigans on Alec B's statement that the film was partially shot in Barstow.

The film was mainly shot in Lone Pine about two hours north of the City of Angels. Being fairly familiar with the less than scenic wonders of Barstow, while watching the film, I could find no footage that looked like it was shot in Barstow.