STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1939, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“GUNGA DIN.” Those who like action in their pictures and many-dramatic moments of thrilling intensity could find no better film than “Gunga Din,” which will be shown tonight at the State Theatre. There have been many good pictures produced before of similar type, but all have been excelled by this R.K.0.-Radio production, in which there is not a dull moment. Three better actors for the trio of fighting sergeants in a British army outpost on the borders of India could not have been chosen than Douglas Fairbanks Junr., Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen, who all play their parts with zest and dramatic realism. Rudyard Kipling’s famous lines “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din,” have been taken as the basis for a series of adventures that binds the audience in anxious tension and thrilling anticipation. The picture opens a few days before Fairbanks, who seems even more agile and dashing than his father, is due to leave the army and marry. The other two sergeants make strenuous efforts to persuade him to re-enlist and finally succeed. The climax to the story comes when the three and Din, a native water-carrier, are trapped by the dreaded Thugs, a race of fanatics who worship Kali, the goddess of murder. How they escape and warn their approaching comrades forms a climax that even surpasses those that have gone before. Grant’s Cutter is the perfect Cockney soldier; always goodnatured, pugnacious, optimistic. It’s a great, overwhelmingly likeable performance. McLaglen, showing a keener sense of humour than usual, is excellent, too; and young Fairbanks is also effective. San Jaffe makes Gunga Din, in Grant’s words, “a very regimental sort of bloke.” He plays him humorously, but gets full dramatic punch into his self-sacrificing scene. Picture patrons who like racy characters, any amount of excitement, heroics performed with a matter-of-fact nonchalance and a magnificent climax, should not fail to see this film.- Box plans are now filling rapidly at Adcock’s.