Gunga Din (film)
''Gunga Din'' is a 1939 American adventure film from RKO Radio Pictures directed by George Stevens and starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., loosely based on the 1890 Gunga Din, poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling combined with elements of his 1888 short story collection ''Soldiers Three''. The film is about three British sergeants and Gunga Din, their native Bhishti, ''bhisti'' (water bearer), who fight the Thuggee, an Indian murder cult, in colonial British Raj, British India. The supporting cast features Joan Fontaine, Eduardo Ciannelli, and in the title role, Sam Jaffe. The epic film was written by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol from a storyline by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with uncredited contributions by Lester Cohen, John Colton (screenwriter), John Colton, William Faulkner, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols, and Anthony Veiller. In 1999, ''Gunga Din'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Stevens
George Cooper Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, film producer, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Obituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'', March 12, 1975, page 79. Films he produced were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture six times while he had five nominations as Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director, winning twice. Among his most notable films are ''Swing Time (film), Swing Time'' (1936), ''Gunga Din (film), Gunga Din'' (1939) and the five movies for which he was nominated for Best Director: ''The More the Merrier (film), The More the Merrier'' (1943); ''A Place in the Sun (1951 film), A Place in the Sun'' (1951), for which he won the Best Director Oscar; ''Shane (film), Shane'' (1953), ''Giant (1956 film), Giant'' (1956), for which he won the Best Director Oscar, and ''The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film), The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959). Biography Film career Stevens was born on December 18, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Library Of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.; it also maintains a conservation center in Culpeper, Virginia. The library's functions are overseen by the Librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the Architect of the Capitol. The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its "collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages." Congress moved to Washington, D.C., in 1800 after holding sessions for eleven years in the temporary national capitals in New York City and Philadelphia. In both cities, members of the U.S. Congress had access to the sizable collection ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anthony Veiller
Anthony Veiller (23 June 1903 – 27 June 1965) was an American screenwriter and film producer. He wrote for 41 films between 1934 and 1964. Life and career Veiller was born on 23 June 1903 in New York City to playwright and screenwriter Bayard Veiller and English-born actress Margaret Wycherly. He moved to Hollywood in 1930. Veiller was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. In 1937, he co-wrote (with Morrie Ryskind) the screenplay for ''Stage Door'', starring Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Adolphe Menjou. This very loose adaptation of the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Veiller was also Oscar-nominated for writing (with uncredited help from John Huston and Richard Brooks) ''The Killers'' (1946), an adaptation of the short story by Ernest Hemingway. The film introduced Burt Lancaster to filmgoers, and won an Edgar Award as best mystery film of 1946. In 2008, it was included in th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dudley Nichols
Dudley Nichols (April 6, 1895 – January 4, 1960) was an American screenwriter and film director. He was the first person to decline an Academy Award, as part of a boycott to gain recognition for the Screen Writers Guild; he would later accept his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1938. Biography Dudley Nichols was born April 6, 1895, in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He studied at the University of Michigan where he was active member of the Sigma chapter of Theta Xi fraternity. After working as a reporter for the ''New York World'', Nichols moved to Hollywood in 1929 and became one of the most highly regarded screenwriters of the 1930s and 1940s. He collaborated on many films over many years with director John Ford, and was also noted for his work with George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir. Nichols wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for films including ''Bringing Up Baby'' (1938), ''Stagecoach (1939 film), Stagecoach'' (1939), ''For Whom the Bell Tolls (film), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. A Nobel Prize laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner's family moved to Oxford, Mississippi when he was a young child. With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel '' Soldiers' Pay'' (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote '' Sartoris'' (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published ''The Sound and the Fury''. The following year, he ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Colton (screenwriter)
John Colton (December 31, 1887 – December 26, 1946) was an American playwright and screenwriter born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He spent the first 14 years of his life in Japan where his English father was a diplomat. After returning to the US he soon worked for a Minneapolis newspaper. He is best remembered for adapting, with Clemence Randolph, Somerset Maugham's novella ''Rain (short story), Rain'' into a 1922 smash hit play starring Jeanne Eagels. He wrote the original play, ''The Shanghai Gesture,'' produced on Broadway theatre, Broadway in 1926. He excelled at writing plays dealing with Americans in far-off lands, an experience Colton knew firsthand from his early youth in Japan. With these huge successes Colton was lured to Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, primarily MGM, where he wrote intertitles for some silent films, silent films and scenarios for others. In the talkie, talking film era he wrote numerous screenplays. Three of his stage plays found motion picture p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Epic Film
Epic films are a style of filmmaking with large-scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The usage of the term has shifted over time, sometimes designating a film genre and at other times simply synonymous with big-budget filmmaking. Like epics in the classical literary sense it is often focused on a heroic character. An epic's ambitious nature helps to set it apart from other types of film such as the period piece or adventure film. Epic historical films would usually take a historical or a mythical event and add an extravagant setting and lavish costumes, accompanied by an expansive musical score with an ensemble cast, which would make them among the most expensive of films to produce. The most common subjects of epic films are royalty, and important figures from various periods in world history. Characteristics The term "epic" originally came from the poetic genre exemplified by such works as the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' and the works of the Trojan War Cycle. In classical litera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himself employed by the British East India company from the age of seventeen until the British government assumed direct rule over India in 1858." * * and lasted from 1858 to 1947. * * The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially. As ''India'', it was a founding member of the League of Nations, a participating nation in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936, and a founding member of the United Nations in San F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thuggee
Thuggee (, ) are actions and crimes carried out by Thugs, historically, organised gangs of professional robbers and murderers in India. The English word ''thug'' traces its roots to the Hindi ठग (), which means 'swindler' or 'deceiver'. Related words are the verb ''thugna'' ('to deceive'), from the Sanskrit स्थग ( 'cunning, sly, fraudulent') and स्थगति (, 'he conceals'). This term, describing the murder and robbery of travellers, was popular in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent, especially northern and eastern regions of historical India (present-day northern/eastern India and Bangladesh). Contemporary scholarship is increasingly skeptical of the ''thuggee'' concept, and has questioned the existence of such a phenomenon, which has led many historians to describe ''thuggee'' as the invention of the British colonial regime. Thugs were said to have travelled in groups across the Indian subcontinent. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bhishti
The Bhishti ( Hindustani: भिश्ती, بهِشتی) are a Muslim tribe or found in North India and Pakistan. History and origin They are classified as ''Ajlaf'' in the South Asian Muslim caste system. The bhisti are knows as Abbasi or Sheikh Abbasi and Saqqa.The Sheikh Abbasi belong to arab tribe (Banu_Abbas).People of India Uttar Pradesh Volume XLII edited by A. Hasan & J. C. Das page 285 *Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bheesty" . ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 845 References Islam in Delhi Indian castes Social groups of Uttar Pradesh Muslim communities of India Shaikh clans Social groups of Delhi Muslim communities of Uttar Pradesh Muslim communities of Gujarat Social groups of Gujarat Social groups of Maharashtra Muslim communities of Maharashtra Tribes of Asia Tribes of Pakistan Tribes of India {).People of India Uttar Pradesh Volume XLII edited by A. Hasan & J. C. Das page 285 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soldiers Three
''Soldiers Three'' is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. The three soldiers of the title are Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, who had also appeared previously in the collection ''Plain Tales from the Hills''. The current version, dating from 1899 and more fully titled ''Soldiers Three and other stories'', consists of three sections which each had previously received separate publication in 1888; Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris appear only in the first section, which is also titled ''Soldiers Three''. The books reveal a side of the British Tommy in Afghanistan rarely seen in the Twilight of the British Empire. The soldiers comment on their betters, act the fool, but cut straight to the rawness of war in central Asia as the British began to loosen their Imperial hold. Publication history The first publication of a collection of seven stories called ''Soldiers Three'' was as No 1 of A.H. Wheeler & Co.’s Indian Railway Library, a slim volume of 97 pages printed at t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |