Absolutely Fantastic

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

This lifeless adventure yarn featuring three veteran privates still suspended in adolescence doesn't have enough energy to get through the first reel. It's a second string Gunga Din that should have never been allowed off the bench.Ackroyd, Sykes, and Malloy have spent most of their adult life as privates keeping the sun up for the Empire. Prone to mischief their frustrated commander (Walter Pidgeon) decides to break the boys up; not by court martial but instead by promoting one to the responsible rank of sergeant. Sulking like schoolboys it fractures the friendship until the mates are in harms way.It's hard to believe director Tay Garnett yelled action in Soldiers Three because the little there is of it is abysmal. The editing is choppy, the battle scenes poorly choreographed with Garnet in some instances having his cast point and fire guns that don't discharge. The three underachieving lifers played by Stewart Granger with a poor Irish accent, Cyril Cusack's rancid pixie and the painful to watch visibly dissipating Robert Newton mooing like a cow and "Ar'ing like Long John Silver lack both chemistry and energy to summon up laughter or excitement. Pidgeon's blustery incoherent commander is no improvement while David Niven and Robert Coote are only required to display stiff upper lips. Void of both action and humor Soldiers Three is strictly third rate.

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.