Gentlemen Rankers - Influences 3 (and final) (for now)

Finally, here are three sergeant's from Gunga Din.  I had forgotten that they were actually Royal Engineers.

Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Junior and Victor McLaglan (1939). Victor McLaglan is often thought of as irish but in fact he was English. He rose from the ranks of the British army to be provost Marshal of Jerusalem at the end of WW1. George McDonald Fraser said (in The Holywood History of the World) that his was the authentic voice of the army at the close of the imperial era.

On film he evinced a kind of general affability that puts me in mind of my Ambrose Delahay.

Here is a picture from the 'Rat Pack' remake of Gunga Din - Sergeant's Three.

An finally (perhaps) everyone's favourite Colour  Sergeant played by Nigel Green in Zulu.


So I haven't exactly found Reuben Chatham or Ambrose Delahay. At least they are not as derivative as I thought they might have been.

I'll have another search for them trough the Holywood back catalogue another day. In the meantime I had better get back to writing some story or I won't have anything to read at the Richmond Writer's Circle when I get back to Blighty.