Gunga Din (film)

Gunga Din
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	George Stevens
Written by	Joel Sayre Fred Guiol
Story by	Ben Hecht Charles MacArthur
Based on	"Gunga Din" Barrack Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling
Produced by	George Stevens
Starring	Cary Grant Victor McLaglen Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Sam Jaffe Eduardo Ciannelli Joan Fontaine
Cinematography	Joseph H. August
Edited by	Henry Berman
Music by	Alfred Newman
Production company	RKO Radio Pictures
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	February 17, 1939 (1939-02-17) (U.S.)
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English Hindi
Budget	$1,915,000[1]
Box office	$2,807,000[1]

Gunga Din is a 1939 American adventure film from RKO Radio Pictures directed by George Stevens and starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., loosely based on the 1890 poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling combined with elements of his 1888 short story collection Soldiers Three. The film is about three British sergeants and Gunga Din, their native bhisti (water bearer), who fight the Thuggee, an Indian murder cult, in colonial British India.

The supporting cast features Joan Fontaine, Eduardo Ciannelli, and in the title role, Sam Jaffe. The epic film was written by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol from a storyline by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with uncredited contributions by Lester Cohen, John Colton, William Faulkner, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols, and Anthony Veiller.

In 1999, Gunga Din was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.^[2][3]