Wednesday, August 24, 2005
RUDYARDED
Today we watched the 1939 version of Indiana Jones or, perhaps, a good western wrapped in more exotic trappings.
is a nearly two hour gloss on a small Kipling poem. The writers Hecht and MacArthur did their Front Page best to give this adventure comedy a lot of story and, of course, excitement and laughs.
It is a little dated, but the front end and the back end are pretty good. George Stevens directs and the scenes filmed mostly in Lone Pine CA (eastern Sierra) look like India to me.
There is a huge cast headed by Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Poor Sam Jaffe (who starred years later on TV's Ben Casey MD) gets fourth billing in the title role as Gunga Din.
It is interesting to note that Fairbank's fiancé Joan Fontaine gets flushed so that Doug can stay with his (uh-huh) buddies.
I liked it. It was fun to watch and some of the battle scenes were a lot more convincing than yesterday's Gangs of New York which I like less as I think about it.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
