Here is a drawing I did for this week's New Yorker, for a column on the movie Gunga Din, starring Sam Jaffe, Cary Grant and Douglass Fairbanks. The movie takes place in Colonial India, around 1880, and is about Gunga Din, an Indian water carrier for the British army, who wants to become an actual soldier. He is played by Sam Jaffe, a Jew born in New York City (like me!). Yes, brown face is involved; but the movie is fun, and there is a good mix of old-fashioned Hollywood battles scenes as well as slapsticky humor, with Cary Grant charm taking over during any scenes that movie history has determined less-than-adequate by today's standards.
The movie is showing at BAM on July 22, and you can read the review here.
