This year’s Brigham Young University Motion Picture Archive Film Series will continue with a full-length, restored version of the rousing adventure drama “Gunga Din” on Friday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m. in the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium.
Admission is free, but seating is limited. Children age eight and above are welcome and BYU dress standards apply. An introductory lecture on the making and significance of the film will be provided by James D’Arc, curator of the BYU Motion Picture Archive and host of the film series.
The film stars Cary Grant along with Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Fontaine. Filmed in 1939, the movie was inspired by the Rudyard Kipling poem about a lowly native water boy for the British Army in colonial India who saves the regiment from a massacre by the Thugee, a fanatic cult whose members were a thorn in the side of the British for generations.
Directed by George Stevens, “Gunga Din” was a major hit in a year full of some of Hollywood’s greatest motion pictures, including “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.” It was the most expensive film made by the RKO studio up to that time.
All the films shown in the series come from BYU’s permanent collection of rare film prints. The series is co-sponsored by the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, the Friends of the Harold B. Lee Library and Dennis and Linda Gibson.
The full season schedule may be accessed online at sc.lib.byu.edu.
Writer: Marissa Ballantyne
