London, 1918: In a gentlemen's club, General Brunswick regales junior officers celebrating a British advance in France with the tale of how he won his brigade command during his service in India, not with gallantry under fire but under circumstances that warranted a court martial.

As the longtime colonel of 1st Battalion, the Rutlandshire Regiment, an infantry unit, Brunswick had a trusted aide, Capt.

Pindenny, and the service of three able but not always reliable privates, Ackroyd, Malloy and Sykes, who for his eighteen years as commander were "the Queen's hard bargain", sneaking off to drink, fight and gamble whenever they could.

Sent from their garrison at Hyderalipore to provide a show of force at a reported disturbance in Mirzabad, Brunswick and his battalion are recalled and placed under rival Colonel Groat of the 28th Hussars and his officious adjutant, Major Mercer.

At Imara the fort is attacked by Manik Rao and overrun, with the British survivors taking refuge in its powder house.

Ackroyd enters the fort in disguise, slays Manik Rao, and saves the lives of the trapped British troops.

Brunswick expects to be court-martialed but finds he was goaded by Groat into acting as he did to avoid officially starting a war.

[11] Gaumont still insisted they would make the film and announced that Victor McLaglen would star[12][13] and Raoul Walsh direct.

In May 1950, it was announced the movie would be one of the first starring Stewart Granger under his new seven-year contract with MGM following the success of King Solomon's Mines – the others were a remake of Scaramouche and Robinson Crusoe.

[22] Eventually Kelly dropped out and David Niven, Robert Newton and Cyril Cusack signed on to star.

When I produced Gunga Din at RKO in 1938 it was banned in India and efforts were made to stop it being shown in the British Isles.

[27] Tay Garnett later wrote: [The cast and story] should have made a good picture, but the miscasting of one principal, which I failed to recognize until it was too late, threw the show completely out of balance.

"[28] Bosley Crowther panned the film in his March 30, 1951, review for The New York Times, concluding :”How such a silly, unimaginative and flavorless picture could have been made from Kipling's wonderful stories is beyond this corner's baffled ken.”[29] According to MGM records the movie earned $1,016,000 in the US and Canada and $1,221,000 overseas, making a profit of $23,000.