The Rains of Ranchipur

A quaint film. shot in Pakistan about events in India. Ranchipur is a fictional kingdom of undivided India, Richard Burton plays a brown skinned South Asian. He does a fairly good job except when he speaks Urdu/Hindi to the native patients and servants.

The main actors played the roles in Hollywood not in Pakistan. The earthquake and street scenes are very realistic for a 1955 film. It certainly deserved the Special Effects Oscar nomination it bagged.. There was an earlier 1930 version of the film scripted by Philip Dunne, where the Lana Turner character dies. That decision to remove the death from the script of the later Negulesco version definitely weakened it as it reiterates the Lana Turner character Edwina as woman who had affairs and dropped them in due course. Had that change not been made the film would have been remarkable. Even the cobra in the film is a real one, not a prop.

As an Indian, I admired the performance of Eugenie Leontovich as the Maharani as she spoke like an Indian maharani would despite her awful wig.

This is one of the rare films of the Fifties showing inter-racial relationships.

Lord Esketh, a British aristocrat, and his glamorous American wife, Edwina, are touring India and staying in the city of Ranchipur, where they are guests of the local Maharani. (The action is supposed to be set in India, even though we see a prominently displayed Pakistani flag in an early scene). Their marriage is an unhappy one and each despises the other. Edwina despises her husband because she sees him as weak and cowardly and because he only married her for her money. (She is an independently wealthy heiress). He despises her because he sees her as cold and heartless; we learn that she has been unfaithful to him with a number of different men. While in Ranchipur Edwina meets and has an affair with a young suntanned Welshman in a turban.

Well, actually Richard Burton's character is supposed to be an Indian, Dr Safti, a physician and the adopted son of the Maharani. Today, the idea of a white actor in "brownface" playing an Indian would strike most people as politically incorrect, but was an accepted practice in the fifties, and at least Burton's performance is a lot less insensitive than that given by Peter Sellers in "The Millionairess" from a few years later. (Sellers was also playing an Indian doctor). Watching the film, I wondered if the use of the Christian name "Edwina" was a veiled reference to Edwina Mountbatten, another independently wealthy heiress, married to a British aristocrat, who visited India and was rumoured to have had an affair with an Indian man, in her case the politician Jawaharlal Nehru. I understand, however, that "The Rains of Ranchipur" is a remake of "The Rains Came" from 1939 (which I have never seen), and that the character had the same name both in this film and in the 1937 novel on which it was based. As the Mountbattens did not come to India until 1947, the coincidence was presumably unintentional.

The Edwina-Safti romance is the mainspring of the plot, but for all Edwina's good looks she is so obviously spoilt, selfish and promiscuous that it is difficult to imagine any man, let alone one as intelligent and idealistic as Dr Safti, falling hopelessly in love with her. There is a subplot involving another romance between Tom Ransome, an alcoholic former lover of Edwina and close friend of Safti, and Fern, the daughter of a local missionary, but this arouses little interest.

The acting is generally undistinguished. Burton, as though embarrassed by having been cast in a role to which he was ill-suited, is horribly stilted and wooden, giving by far his worst performance in any film of his which I have seen. The Russian-born Eugenie Leontovich as the Maharani is no more convincing as an Indian than is Burton. Lana Turner as Edwina and Fred MacMurray as Tom were both capable of much better things than this. Probably the best is Joan Caulfield as Fern. The intention seems to have been to contrast Fern's youth and innocence with the cynicism and corruption of the experienced older woman Edwina, so it is perhaps surprising that Caulfield, who at 33 was only a year younger than Turner, was cast in the role, but she is fresh and youthful-looking enough to succeed in making the contrast an effective one.

The best thing about the film is its special effects. Although "The Rains of Ranchipur" is not a "disaster movie" in the sense that the film-makers of the seventies would have understood the term, an earthquake and the subsequent flood after the earthquake destroys a dam play important roles in the story. These scenes are very well done, are still convincingly impressive even in the era of CGI and the main reason why I have given the film an average mark. Unfortunately, there is little else to make the film worth watching today. Special effects apart, it is the sort of dull, turgid and implausible melodrama which typified Hollywood at its worst during the fifties. 5/10

In rainy Ranchipur, India, promiscuous blonde Lana Turner (as Edwina) seduces inexperienced Hindu doctor Richard Burton (as Rama Safti). Meanwhile, heavy-drinking Fred MacMurray (as Tom Ransome) tries to fend off flirty blonde Joan Caulfield (as Fern Simon). As you might expect, Ms. Turner is decked out in expensive clothing and smokes more than her usual share of cigarettes. Looking likewise with extra brown make-up, Mr. Burton is earnest but apt to provoke unintentional laughter. Too lazy to steal the film by acting even moderately drunk, Mr. MacMurray is merely coasting until Disney rescues his career. With a teen-aged pony-tail and lilting voice, Ms. Caulfield found her feature film career effectively ended. In this crowd, fifth-billed Michael Rennie (as Albert Esketh) shines by just standing around. There is a special effects disaster in the last half-hour, and Turner has some good scenes - but you have to wait over an hour to something to happen.

**** The Rains of Ranchipur (12/14/55) Jean Negulesco ~ Lana Turner, Richard Burton, Fred MacMurray, Joan Caulfield

For those among us who grew up watching a lot of television in the 1960s,it's always a lot of fun seeing stars doing supporting roles earlier in their careers.And who's doing the bluff,hearty,amiable Sikh police captain?None other than John Banner,who went on to do the comic heavy Schultz,on"Hogan's Heroes."And,for all of his teutonic ponderousness,he does manage to carry it off.

This wide-screen romance yarn showcases the lovely Lana Turner as a wealthy and restless socialite who becomes smitten with a handsome native doctor during a trip to India. This is the main thread of the film although there are other sub-plots at work here. Richard Burton is good as the object of Turner's affections and Eugenie Leontovich is regal as the Maharani who raised Burton from childhood. This sage queen watches the blossoming romance with cold displeasure, deeply jealous of Turner's hold on him. Fred MacMurray is involved in another clincher with Joan Caulfield that doesn't ring true and adds very little to the main story. Michael Rennie has a thankless role as Turner's husband, whom she keeps at arms's length throughout the movie. The ensuing monsoons, flooding and earthquake in the region are awesome and terrible in their destruction, the special effects of which are very good. Turner is clothed in a first-class wardrobe and the film's sets reflect the lavish production. Milton Krasner's camera and Hugo Friedhofer's exotic music score are first-rate.