as he wished. Cast Stewart Granger as Archibald Ackroyd Walter Pidgeon as Colonel Brunswick David Niven as Captain Pindenny Robert Newton as Bill Sykes Cyril Cusack as Dennis Malloy Greta Gynt as Crenshaw Robert Coote as Major Mercer Dan O'Herlihy as Sergeant Murphy Michael Ansara as Manik Rao Movita Castaneda as cabaret girl Production Development In 1934, it was announced that Gaumont British would make a film based on Soldiers Three. A film crew was sent to India under Geoffrey Barkas to shoot second unit footage. A script had been written based on "The Courting of Dinah Shadd" and Lung Tung Pen" and involve a climax especially written by Kipling involving a battle at the Khyber Pass. The battle was shot with army cooperation. Michael Balcon of Gaumont then set about trying to secure a cast. He visited Hollywood and said he was interested in Pat O'Brien to play the lead. Then Richard Dix, Maureen O'Sullivan and C. Aubrey Smith were all mentioned as possible stars. Gordon Harker was also announced as a lead. Smith actually travelled to England to make the movie, but wound up appearing in Trans-Atlantic Tunnel instead. Soldiers Three was postponed. Gaumont still insisted they would make the film and announced that Victor McLaglen would star and Raoul Walsh direct. Walsh said he was interested in making two versions, one for England and one for America – the latter without the British dialect. Walsh left for England to begin pre-production and Charles Bickford was announced as co-star. However, Gaumont never made the film. In early 1938, MGM announced they were going to make the film along with another Kipling adaptation, Kim. A script was written by Vincent Lawrence and Grover Jones. However shooting was postponed out of sensitivity to Indian audiences. The project was reactivated after the war and the script was rewritten by Marguerite Roberts. The producer was Pandro S. Berman, who had worked on Gunga Din. It was one of two Kipling-orientated films being made by the studio at the time, the other being Kim. 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. The latter film was never made. The initial cast was to be Granger, Gene Kelly and Walter