Silver Screen (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

"YOU'RE Adventures On Location With The "Gunga Din'* Troupe. By Edward Hillis A Better Man Than I Am" THREE tall, sun-browned Englishmen in light khaki uniforms and sun helmets crouched on a roof under a blazing tropic sun. Steadily they fired at a relentless group of white-clad natives stealthily approaching across the house tops. One huge Hindu ran from cover-a rifle cracked. With a high, thin scream he toppled from the parapet, hurtled to the street to lie in a huddled heap. A second fell ... a third . . . From their roof, though retreat was cut off and ammunition failing, the English and their pitiful handful of Sepoy troops continued steady, disciplined gunfire. But the mass of natives continued— slowly, surely—to advance, firing raggedly as they came. They knew, which the Englishmen did not, that native reinforcements were at hand. And at that moment they arrived, a mounted horde of brown Hillmen, shouting defiance, sweeping up the crooked native street, deadly rifle fire concentrated on that tiny British force. The village shook to the thunder of hoofs, the incessant roar of guns. But over the din rose the steady voice of the English sergeant: "Ready! Aim! Fire! Ready! Aim! Fire!" and the regular beat of volley upon volley in response. But the natives came on, filling housetop and street, driving the English to the farthest corner of their tiny roof. Desperately, with a reckless, abandoned gesture, one Englishman leaped to the parapet, in his hand a crude bomb. An instant he poised, ready to hurl it . . . "Cu-u-ui!" shouted an exultant voice over the tumult. "That's it!" Instantly gunfire ceased. Horses were halted, shouting died away so abruptly the silence was deafening. "Corpses" sat up, gratefully drank coca colas. Stunt men, who had been falling off roofs for hours, casu 24 Victor McLaglen plays an officer of the British Army. Just a chapter out of his own life, to Vic. ally picked themselves up, rolled cigarettes. Property boys passed out another thousand rounds of blank cartridges for the next "take." And our three Englishmen— none other than Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.— strolled over to the edge of their recently besieged rooftop, grinning down at us. "Hot," said they, referring to the weather. Another scene of "Gunga Din" was "in the can." But behind that thrilling battle scene, so realistic that even hardened spectators forgot the battery of cameras, lies two years of planning, of research, of writing, two million dollars, the concentrated efforts of two thousand men— and more funny stories than you could put in a dozen books. To begin at the beginning. Two years ago, RKO-Radio decided to film an adventure story of British India in the 'nineties, basing the production on Rudyard Kipling's poem, "Gunga Din," which tells of the heroism of a native water carrier under fire. Out of this grew a tale of three daredevil young sergeants (Cary, Vic and Doug), who spend their time getting into sprightly little difficulties (one such "difficulty" is the scene described above), to the despair of old Gunga Din— and their Colonel. Repeatedly the Colonel decides to throw them out of the army: but invariably some military emergency arises demanding their particular brand of irresponsible pluck. Doug complicates things by falling in love with the daughter of an English tea planter (Joan Fontaine), plans to leave the army to marry her. Faced with such a catastrophe, Vic and Cary determine to break off the Sam Jaffe, as Gunga Din, and Cary Grant "A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen." Producer Director George Stevens rides back to the "location camp" at the base of Mt. Whitney, in the High Sierras. match, with funny and disastrous results. Eventually the trio becomes involved in a situation too much for even their luck and daring. Plucky old Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe) comes once more to their rescue, loses his life but saves the three. As to whether Doug stays in the army or marries the girl —why should we tell you everything? Though part of "Gunga Din" was filmed on the lot, most of the production was shot on location, 220 miles northeast of Hollywood. The location department had scoured the country and finally found in the Alabama mountains a collection of low, worndown-to-a-nub desert hills wTith the High Sierras in the background— an exact reproduction of the Khyber Pass country in the Himalayas. The only thing that didn't match was the soil, which is black in India, sand color in this particular part of California. Undisturbed, the production department shipped 26,000 gallons of crude oil up to location, and "dyed" the soil black. One super-reality furnished free by the location department was the weather. It was HOT! India at its worst was never like this. The thermometer climbed as high as 120. 110 was counted refreshingly cool! Try that on your constitution for twelve solid weeks. As Douglas remarked plaintively, "After all, they can't film the tem Silver Screen