Gunga Din (1939) (Movie)

format_quote Colonel Weed: (reading from the poem by the journalist, Rudyard Kipling) "Though I've belted you and flayed you / By the living God that made you / You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

stars  The "bridge over the deep chasm" scene, in which Annie the elephant shakes a rope bridge while trying to cross, was actually filmed on a bridge eight feet off the ground. The background was a realistic painting of a chasm.

stars  Eight make-up artists were sent to the Lone Pine set, where they worked for the six weeks of location shooting. Over 600 extras were employed in the Mount Whitney scenes.

stars  Howard Hawks was the original director, but was fired from the project after his previous film, Bringing Up Baby (1938), was a box office bomb.

stars  In some prints, the actor playing Rudyard Kipling, has been replaced on one side of the screen by a rather shaky matte when the last lines of poem "Gunga Din" are read.

stars  In March 1939, the Kipling family objected to a reporter being called Rudyard Kipling, prompting RKO to eliminate that scene from the film when it was re-released. However, it is in the prints available today. The scheduled release date of December 1938 was postponed for retakes. John Sturges, an uncredited editor on this film, directed the remake, Sergeants 3 (1962).