Elephant Walk (1954)
Grade: 70
"Elephant Walk" has been sneered at by critics for 45 years now. Yet it has aged well. Elizabeth Taylor is lovely in her endless collection of revealing dresses, and the cinematography and sets filmed on location in Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) are very good.
The criticism has been aimed instead at the silly (but entertaining) finale involving rampaging elephants and a burning mansion, and a soap opera-ish love triangle with ivory-skinned Taylor at the center. But this film has been viewed too cynically, perhaps because its target audience is female. Certainly the script and story is a bit ridiculous, but that is not necessarily a disadvantage. "Elephant Walk" is an unintentional comedy, and with this view in mind the film becomes an excellent waste of two hours.
The story begins with wealthy tea planter John Wiley (Peter Finch) bringing his new bride Ruth (Taylor) to his immense plantation and estate in Ceylon. At first Taylor is pleased by the tropical beauty and her new-found luxury, but there is trouble in paradise.
For some reason, Finch prefers the company of his drunken, middle-aged friends, who turn his mansion into their club. Taylor is apparently the only 'white' woman in Ceylon, and in her annoyance and boredom turns to angst-ridden overseer Dana Andrews. Besides the usual concerns over guilt and morality, their would-be infidelity is threatened by a drought and a cholera epidemic.
"Elephant Walk" was beset with production problems. The roles played by Finch and Taylor were originally intended for Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh. Filming actually began with Leigh, but the tropical climate and a nervous breakdown interfered. Taylor's luck was little better: a freak accident involving a wind machine caused her hospitalization with a steel splinter in her eye.
"Elephant Walk" reminds me of "Rebecca", the 1940 Hitchcock epic. A new bride out of place at a mansion, run by a creepy servant who dislikes her and who has a slavish devotion to a long dead master. Like in "Rebecca", the hated mansion goes down in flames, with the now-attentive husband promising her a new and better life away from its remains. This formula was far better presented in "Rebecca", but it works here as well.
kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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