Hacker Cinema
Gunga Din
1939 · Film · 117 min
Directed by George Stevens
British army sergeants Ballantine, Cutter and MacChesney serve in India during the 1880s, along with their native water-bearer, Gunga Din. While completing a dangerous telegraph-repair mission, they unearth evidence of the suppressed Thuggee cult. When Gunga Din tells the sergeants about a secret temple made of gold, the fortune-hunting Cutter is captured by the Thuggees, and it's up to his friends to rescue him.
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3 comments on Hacker News
I thumbed to 1939 in the "1001 Films to See Before You Die" and got these (three I believe are "foreign" films however):
Stagecoach, Zangiku Monogatari, Babes In Arms, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Wizard of Oz, Destry Rides Again, Only Angels Have Wings, Gone with The Wind, Le Jour Se Lève, Gunga Din, Ninotchka, La Règle Du Jeu, Wuthering Heights
Ok. Your reply essentailly says the simplest solution answers the question, why make it more complicated? That's a valid point. Let me offer more details.
This question is my attempt at a generalization of a problem, wrapped in an idea of how I came to be a person who likes (or used to like) rewatching movies.
Today, I own exactly 12 movies which I enjoy rewatching. Twelve movies I would rewatch virtually anytime I'm bored. Don't get me wrong. I'm not watching only these twelve movies. I watch any one of them a few times per year.
The rest of the time I like borrowing DVDs from my local Library--new movies, serial programs, and movies/films I want to rewatch. And like you say, "I browse... [the] library and just feel like rewatching that movie." AND, there are some movies at my local library which I enjoy rewatching, but don't yet care to own.
The problem. Recently, my local library deacquisitioned one of my rewatch movies, Wes Anderson's _The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou_ (2004), Criterion no less. If you ask why this was removed from the collection, they give the canned answer, not enough people are checking it out. But I think there is some bias in the decision. We also have a copy of Gunga Din (1939) "Adventure story of three English soldier comrades battling the savage punjabs in India..." Ah. Ok.
What compells us to rewatch movies? What can a library do to increase circulation of old movies? How can a library deacquisition more intelligently and in alignment with the community of patron's preferences?
> In this case we have two extremely popular classics from the 1930s, generally regarded as among the best films ever made.
Just to beat a dead horse, the two films you reference were from the same year; 1939, the best year Hollywood ever had. Ever.
Other films of that year included Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka, Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Stagecoach, Of Mice and Men, and Young Mr. Lincoln. It was the peak of the "studio system" and Hollywood never again came close to it in terms of the sheer quantity of quality that was produced that year.