Nine Hours to Rama

Narayan: "What would happen to us in the next life if Gandhi calls out to Rama, and we have killed him? We will be vile things in the next life." Nathu: "He will not call out to Rama, I swear! He will not." With a look of doubt on his face.

He was Gandhi's admirer in his early years but then under the influence of VD Savarkar he came to disapprove of Gandhiji's 'non-violence' ideology and became a devotee of hindutva.(which is currently in vogue, gradually preponderating). He had an affair with a married woman who was Gandhiji's follower and one of the what-if conjecture is that if she had agreed to run away with him just before he was to reach Birla house, Gandhiji would have lived 135 years !!!!

This movie is based on a book by Stanley Wolpert's that was published in 1962 but soon after was banned in India. The Nehruvian india also banned the movie. The possible reasons could be because Gandhi appears only in few pages of the book and the movie shows some alcohol and sex-driven account of Godse. But the government's failure could also be one of the reasons as they did have an intel of a possible assassin but still they failed to enforce additional security measures. Why were the fence around the Birla House and the compound not secured and monitored ????

The movie was made in 1963... Horst Bucholtz's (The Magnificent Seven fame) performance is well-fitting. However, the most cast including protagonist and principal characters are being played by white people with faces painted brown!!!! Why??? No English speaking actor was available back then? How about Sanjeev Kumar??? Tongue-in-cheek ... J S Kashyap is a perfect choice for the Gandhi role.. and he shines even his screen presence is limited to only few brief moments .. Many prominent Gandhians including my grandfather who was very close to Sardar Patel requested clemency for the Godse. As Gandhiji too was in favor of abolishing the death penalty. However, since death penalty still existed at the time, it was just fair to sentence him as justice must prevail!

Do you know that Nathuram Godse's niece was married to Veer Savarkar's nephew?

"It is because I have failed that you both (police superintendent and killer (Godse ) carry a gun. The weakest possess the most strength! Humility is power and non-violence will conquer over the violence though it will take thousand years. Woukd you like me to linger around fir another thousand years? " - Gandhiji Watch Nine Hours to Rama, available on YouTube.

So little is heard of this film these days, that it has almost slipped into obscurity. And that's a shame. It has a fascinating story at the core--but the drawback seems to be a series of flashbacks that could have been edited to omit too much emphasis on the love interest between the assassin (HORST BUCHHOLZ) and VALERIE GEARON.

The flashbacks explaining the youth of the future assassin are interesting enough and there's a lot of local color in the splendid Indian backgrounds to give the story an authentic feel. But the romance takes up too much time that cuts into the suspenseful angle of a tale that lacks the taut excitement generated by that other famous assassination attempt depicted in THE DAY OF THE JACKAL.

Jose Ferrer and Robert Morley are the only other notables in the cast, with the exception of DIANE BAKER (whom I almost didn't recognize as the dark-skinned Indian girl that shares an intense scene with Buchholz in which she gets slapped around pretty badly).

Two hours of running time is a bit of a stretch for this tale, which is still absorbing enough to watch under Mark Robson's forceful direction. HORST BUCHHOLZ carries the film with a very intense performance that gives the film almost all of its edge.

For an even more exemplary example of this type of film, I highly recommend THE DAY OF THE JACKAL for tighter suspense.

Despite periodic attempts by his family to rehabilitate him, Natu Ram Ghodse remains **unperson** in India. It is illegal to publish his name or likeness, with the intention of wiping out all memory of the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi.

The astonishing portrayal of the magnicide Ghodse by young Horst Buchholz shows that it is possible on an emotional level to empathize with an unsympathetic character.

The casting probably is the best thing about this picture--that and the exceptional local color of the cinematography. Buchholtz was German born and bred, yet there always was something, well...Asiatic about his looks. Darken his complexion a bit and he makes a convincing Hindu. The most inspired casting of all however was J. S. Casshyap as Gandhi. Casshyap was a university professor, Indian but entirely at home in English, and this was his first film role. His last, too so far as is known. Seeing him bent over a simple spinning wheel really is like seeing the Great Soul himself on the last day of his life.

Many commenters have remarked the effective opening titles but none seem to get the significance of showing the steady unwinding of a watch's mainspring, with driving, rhythmic Indian music in the background. Time...time is passing...time is running out--for Mohandas Gandhi, for India, for the world.

I watched this film completely at random from my library of "old VHS" I thought it to be a very good production, but probably of marginal interest to today's public.

After I realized what the movie really portrayed, I was fascinated to pursue some of the other comments, a piece of history that has been "missed." Really some of this is very relevant to what is happening today. I very much appreciate the sentiments pro or con in the above reviews.

Good movie overall, I'll not comment on the production, but would make the following observations: Bucholz - great performance, but where did he go from here? (I did see the obit); Ferrer - very impressed with his handling of his role; Morley - miscast and not in character

Lastly. this was an AngloHollywood production of an IndoPakistani historic event. A Bollywood reproduction might prove interesting!

Nine Hours To Rama is the story of the Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948. When I saw the film Gandhi with Ben Kingsley, I looked on the IMDb message board and someone asked if Gandhi was a fictional character. So in case you're not aware, he was the founder of the independence movement that led to the creation of India and Pakistan. He believed in nonviolent resistance, which got rid of the British, but the Muslims broke away and created Pakistan. War and conflict followed.

A Hindu, Nathuram Gotse, blamed Gandhi for conceding too much to the Muslim separatist leader, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. He wasn't alone.

The strongest performance in the film is that of J.S. Casshyap, who plays Gandhi - I actually felt like I was watching the great man himself. He did a fantastic job. Horst Buchholz, an incredibly handsome man who enjoyed a good career in America for a time, plays Gotse very well. As the police inspector, Jose Ferrer handled his role beautifully - he knows Gandhi is in danger, but Gandhi won't let him take any precautions or change his schedule.

This film was released less than a year after the Kennedy assassination. The film states it is a work of fiction, as it focuses on Gotse and his various involvements.