Soldiers Three (1951)

It is a performances centric movie

Best movie ever!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Soldiers Three is a 1951 black and white war drama that is a pale imitation of Gunga Din (1939). How on earth you could try to re-make Gunga Din is questionable enough, but consider that producer Pandro Berman worked on the original. What was he thinking?Stewart Granger, David Niven, Cyril Cusack and Robert Newton star, but none of them come anywhere near the talent on display by Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Sam Jaffe.Granger made far better films (King Solomon's Mines, Scaramouche) as did Newton (my favorite Long John Silver), and of course Niven who won Oscars and Golden Globes for many memorable performances.Here is a film that should be avoided.

Based on another Rudyard Kipling story, the parallels between this and the better known Gunga Din film are too obvious to ignore. Once again Kipling has three protagonists soldiers as heroes who are three of the most undisciplined soldiers in the Indian army. But are three of the best fighters. Unlike Gunga Din where the heroes are sergeants, these three guys are from the ranks and have been there for many years.Stewart Granger, Cyril Cusack, and Robert Newton are our three privates and they get into all kinds of jackpots. Their colonel is Walter Pidgeon and this whole film is a flashback offered at a club by retired General Pidgeon. After one incident too many he and his adjutant David Niven have the idea to promote one of them to break up the team. It works to some degree.But when Cusack and Newton and many more of their comrades get into a nasty jackpot trying to capture a rebel tribe leader the old team comes together. In fact the rescue of the group by Granger bears a lot of similarity to the climax of Gunga Din. Only this one is played for far more laughs. This military comedy cried for the rough house traditions set by John Ford. Although director Tay Garnett did any number of good action films, the whole military tradition and the comedy would have really been perfected had Ford been at the helm. Irishman Ford did quite well with the British army in India with Wee Willie Winkie.Still Soldiers Three is worthwhile if you're a fan of the three leads.

Other posters complained that in Soldiers Three Granger imitates Cary Grant in Gunga Din. I'm a fan of Gunga Din but hadn't really thought of comparing the actors as I watched Soldiers Three. Instead I found myself admiring, and frequently amused by, Granger's comic abilities--of which he showed flashes in other movies but of course he was better known as a romantic swashbuckler or, later, a western hero comfortable with the ladies.Another complaint is that the film is a Hollywood potboiler, but what's surprising is how much British comic style survives in this production from the West Coast of North America. The comic pace may seem "lazy," but it's familiar even now in the Brit-coms that play Saturday nights on PBS. Granger's timing and interplay with Sykes and Cusack are admittedly unspectacular but nonetheless well-practiced in technique and pleasantly warm with human feeling.As a final recommendation, the story, characters, and dialogue may be closer to authentic Kipling than Gunga Din, whose screenplay was a free expansion of a not-very-long poem that contributes little to the film with the same title. Long ago I read Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills partly about English servicemen in India and introducing the characters of Soldiers Three. I think there were later stories collected under the title Soldiers Three. Anyway the plain and humane style remind me of those early stories by Kipling, which gambol between stereotypes and humanity. Kipling's Anglo-Indian writings benefit from his youth and early journalistic career primarily in what is now Pakistan. The film of Soldiers Three seems true to this author's spirit.

I just got to see this fine film. A powerful cast of stars and thrilling R. Kipling action that shows film on a large piece of Hollywood film location history. This film centers around a Victorian time Kibber Pass English fort which is actually a well used fort location in Simi Valley/Chatsworth area. The real British Army officer during WW2s, David Niven is fun. A real interesting part is that leading-man, Stuart Granger, does fine performing as a lowly private and lower class in this comedy. The fort was part of the Corriganville Theme park in the 60's & 70's and was closed after a severe hillside fire. The area is now a Simi Valley public park that holds only the cement and brick remnants to remind film lovers of it's previous use in grand films like this one, John Ford's films featuring US Cavalry forts, Weismuller's Tarzan jungle streams, Gene Kelly Three Mustketeers, and the Lone Ranger and Roy Roger's TV shows.This fort was moved from Corriganville in the late 60's and re-assembled in the Acton California Vasquez Rocks public park. The fort still was used there for mostly TV shows that required military bases like Robert Conrad's Wild, Wild, West and the original series of Star Trek. I have picture of myself on the forts ramparts in 1964. The fort was removed due to safety and insurance concerns because of it's extreme age.