I'm still on my golden oldies kick and there is an embarrassment of riches to choose from today since my recent viewing has also included John Ford's masterful "The Prisoner of Shark Island" and a couple of early Lubitsch silents which I'd not seen before. However since the young and very beautiful Tyrone Power always bowls me over, the above film wins pride of place.
Made in that magic year of 1939 when so many other classic films made their appearance, this one is a lavish studio production from20th Century Fox (not a major player in those days) set in the years when India was emerging from its colonial yoke. Power plays a turbaned high-caste dedicated doctor whom the childless maharani, the very wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya, has chosen to succeed her rule after her husband's death. Into the palace comes visiting Lady Esketh, played by the then "Queen of Hollywood" Myrna Loy, a spoiled and immoral socialite and her pathetically useless husband Nigel Bruce. She also meets up with an old lover and equally dissolute remittance man George Brent, but has her cap set for the dashing Power who seems to successfully resist her siren charms.
And then the rains came! Flood, destruction, epidemics -- all thrillingly pictured and there is nothing like disaster to bring out a 30's heroine latent nobility, as Loy assists in the hospital in every menial way and finally wins Power's love. But it's too late for a fallen woman and theirs is a love that can not be consummated -- very 30s that! The film was remade in colour in 1955 as "The Rains of Ranchipur" with Lana Turner and Richard Burton in the leads, but I'll take this black and white beauty any day. Burton may have been the stronger actor, but in the gorgeous stakes, he doesn't stand a chance again the young Tyrone -- and that's good enough for me.
Ping again
2 comments:
The Rains Came is one of my favorite movies. When Tyrone does his monologue without his turban on and in closeup -- the first time I saw it I nearly fell off of my bed. HOTTIE BOOMBALATI. LOVE HIM.
If you are in the LA area, there is a three-day tribute to him run by American Cinematheque November 14, 15 and 16. His second box set comes out July 29.
......had a crush on Tyrone, he was devilishly handsome :) Rache
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