The Rains of Ranchipur
Encyclopedia
The Rains of Ranchipur is a 1955
1955 in film
The year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....

 film drama
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 made by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

. It was directed by Jean Negulesco
Jean Negulesco
Jean Negulesco was a Romanian-born American film director and screenwriter....

 and produced by Frank Ross
Frank Ross (producer)
Frank Ross was a film producer, writer, and actor.A graduate of Princeton University, Ross began acting in 1929's The Saturday Night Kid, starring Clara Bow and Jean Arthur, whom he married in 1932. He only appeared in two more films...

 from a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Merle Miller
Merle Miller
Merle Miller was an American novelist best known for his biographies of Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Three years before his best-selling book Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S...

, based on the novel The Rains Came
The Rains Came
The Rains Came is the title of a novel by Louis Bromfield, published in 1937, as well as the 1939 20th Century Fox film version which followed it...

by Louis Bromfield
Louis Bromfield
Louis Bromfield was an American author and conservationist who gained international recognition winning the Pulitzer Prize and pioneering innovative scientific farming concepts.-Biography:...

. The music score was by Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer was an American film music composer born in San Francisco. His father was a cellist trained in Dresden, Germany; his mother, Eva König, was born in Germany.Friedhofer began playing cello at the age of 13...

 and the cinematography by Milton R. Krasner
Milton R. Krasner
Milton R. Krasner, A.S.C. was a film cinematographer. He won an Academy Award for Three Coins in the Fountain .-Career:...

.

The film stars Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...

, Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

, Fred MacMurray
Fred MacMurray
Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....

, Joan Caulfield
Joan Caulfield
Joan Caulfield was an American actress and former fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a stage career in 1943 that eventually led to signing as an actress with Paramount Pictures....

 and Michael Rennie
Michael Rennie
Michael Rennie was an English film, television, and stage actor, perhaps best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, he appeared in over 50 other films since 1936, many with Jean Simmons and other...

 with Eugenie Leontovich
Eugenie Leontovich
Eugenie Leontovich was a Russian-born stage actress with a distinguished career in theatre, film and television. She was described as "[o]ne of the most colourful figures of the 20th-century theatre, a successful actress, producer, playwright and teacher."...

.

Made in color, Cinemascope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...

, and four-track stereophonic sound, the film is a remake of the 1939
1939 in film
The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...

 black-and-white film The Rains Came, also made by Fox, directed by Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown was an American film director.-Early life:Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was 11. He attended Knoxville High School and the University of Tennessee, both in Knoxville, Tennessee, graduating from the university at the age of...

 and starring Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...

 and Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...

. However, the 1955 film changes the novel's ending.

Ranchipur, the bull elephant
Asian Elephant
The Asian or Asiatic elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas and distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized — Elephas maximus maximus from Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant or E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m....

 at the San Diego Zoo
San Diego Zoo
The San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, is one of the most progressive zoos in the world, with over 4,000 animals of more than 800 species...

, gets his name from this film.

Plot summary

In India to purchase some horses, British royal Lord Esketh and his wife, Lady Edwina Esketh, come to the town of Ranchipur at the invitation of the elderly Maharani. Their marriage is an unhappy one and Lord Esketh announces his intention to return to England and begin divorce proceedings against her. The spoiled, insensitive Edwina scoffs at this.

She renews in Ranchipur an acquaintance with a former lover, Tom Ransome, now a dissolute alcoholic. She also meets and attempts to seduce a distinguished Hindu physician, Dr. Rama Safti, a decent man who is the elderly Maharani's personal choice to succeed her someday.

Safti at first resists, but ultimately succumbs to Edwina's charms and falls hopelessly in love with her. Lord Esketh becomes aware of this, but Safti saves him from a man-eating tiger during a safari. Safti admits his love for Edwina to Lord Esketh, who is now sympathetic toward this good man's plight.

Ransome feels the same way, warning Edwina to stay away from Safti, a friend he admires. Edwina similarly falls into disfavor with the Maharani, who explains that Safti has been raised to lead a pure life and that Edwina is unworthy of him.

Ranchipur suddenly is ravaged by a natural disaster, an earthquake and flood. Dr. Safti is so busy saving lives that he cannot personally care for Edwina, who has fallen ill. Ransome looks after her as well as for young Fern Simon, who has declared her love for him. When a dam is exploded by dynamite and as a result the flood waters recede, it is Dr. Safti who reveals that Ransome is the one who risked his personal safety to save the people of Ranchipur.

Lady Edwina tries to explain to the Maharani that her love for Safti has become true, so much so that she will make the sacrifice of leaving him for his own good. She drives away from Ranchipur with her husband.

Cast

  • Lana Turner
    Lana Turner
    Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...

     as Lady Edwina Esketh
  • Richard Burton
    Richard Burton
    Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

     as Dr. Rama Safti
  • Fred MacMurray
    Fred MacMurray
    Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....

     as Tom Ransome
  • Michael Rennie
    Michael Rennie
    Michael Rennie was an English film, television, and stage actor, perhaps best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, he appeared in over 50 other films since 1936, many with Jean Simmons and other...

     as Lord Esketh
  • Joan Caulfield
    Joan Caulfield
    Joan Caulfield was an American actress and former fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a stage career in 1943 that eventually led to signing as an actress with Paramount Pictures....

     as Fern Simon
  • Eugenie Leontovich
    Eugenie Leontovich
    Eugenie Leontovich was a Russian-born stage actress with a distinguished career in theatre, film and television. She was described as "[o]ne of the most colourful figures of the 20th-century theatre, a successful actress, producer, playwright and teacher."...

    as the Maharani
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