La piste des éléphants

A beautiful shopgirl in London is swept off her feet by a millionaire tea plantation owner and soon finds herself married and living with him at his villa in British Ceylon. Although based upon the book by Robert Standish, this initial set-up is highly reminiscent of Hitchock's "Rebecca", with leading lady Elizabeth Taylor clashing with the imposing chief of staff at the mansion and (almost immediately) her own husband, who is still under the thumb of his deceased-but-dominant father. Taylor, a last-minute substitute for an ailing Vivien Leigh, looks creamy-smooth in her high fashion wardrobe, and her performance is quite strong; however, once husband Peter Finch starts drinking heavily and barking orders at her, one might think her dedication to him rather masochistic (this feeling hampers the ending as well). Still, the film offers a heady lot for soap buffs: romantic drama, a bit of travelogue, interpretive dance, an elephant stampede, and a perfectly-timed outbreak of cholera! **1/2 from ****

The scintillating Elizabeth Taylor stars in this lesser-known classic as a young girl from London who falls in love with a tea plantation owner from British Ceylon (current day Sri Lanka). Upon arrival she instantly feels out of place and is forced to adapt to the new culture as well as be in constant awareness of the angry elephant herd. William Dieterle, who also directed The Life Of Emile Zola and Portrait Of Jennie , does a masterful job of bringing a somewhat dark, and almost eerie, undertone to this romance and the setting is one of the most beautiful I've seen with the black and white themed mansion and the gorgeous island scenery.

My parents took me to this movie when I was nine years old. I have never forgotten it. I had never before seen anything as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor. (She was twenty-two when she made Elephant Walk) Remember, I'm nine, so the feelings aren't sexual, I just couldn't see anything else on the screen. I just wanted to sit at her feet like a puppy and stare up at her. She has begun to show her age, (She's almost seventy-four) but I still believe her to be one of the most beautiful and breathtaking women to ever have lived.

I have seen the movie several times since, and it is a sappy melodrama. What saves it is, of course, Miss Taylor's beauty, magnificent scenery, the very impressive elephant stampede, and a well-made point on human arrogance in the face of nature.

All in all, a well-spent couple of hours watching the movie channel or a rented video.

Elizabeth Taylor, fresh from Chillingford-on-the-Thames, has just married Ceylonese tea planter Peter Finch and he's taken her back home. He's got quite a place over in what is now Sri Lanka, a 'bungalow' big enough to have a polo field. And that's exactly what they do there. He and his father's friends get on bicycles and play polo in the living room.

It's all tradition you know started by Finch's dad who is known to one and all as 'the Guv'nor.' He must have been something else, in everyone's memory he becomes almost a caricature of the colonial Briton.

The man must truly have been nuts or else he was one of those colonials who Noel Coward warned went out in the noon day sun a little too long. He built this palatial estate right on a well worn path that the elephants use to get to fresh water when the streams dry up in their neck of the woods. The local natives have to periodically ward them off with noise. They can't kill them because of the strict conservation laws and the Buddhist tradition.

Maybe I missed something here, but did he have to build the house right there? Does make for a spectacular climax though.

Peter Finch feels the need to keep traditions up and all the friends come over every week, get stinking drunk, and play bicycle polo in the living room. Not exactly the home Liz had in mind. She seeks some solace with overseer Dana Andrews who being American is not into all the colonial British traditions.

Elephant Walk, which is also the name of the Finch estate, has the advantage of some really beautiful cinematography in Sri Lanka. Lends an air of realism to a rather unreal plot.

Check out Abraham Sofaer who plays the major domo of Elephant Walk with the biggest handlebar mustache on record. One that Terry-Thomas would have envied.

Vivien Leigh was supposed to do Elephant Walk, but she bowed out do to health issues. That tuberculosis did flare up at the right time though.

... with Abraham Sofaer as a kinder gentler Mrs. Danvers.

John Wiley (Peter Finch), a Ceylon (Sri Lanka today) planter, is in London. While there he meets and marries a bookstore clerk, Ruth (Elizabeth Taylor) and brings her back to his estate - "Elephant Walk". But once home John begins to change. He seems haunted by the specter of his father, Tom Wiley, a harsh man who built Elephant Walk - named such because it is literally in the path of the historic elephant path to water. John drinks heavily, broods, and parties all night with a bunch of fellow planters, barking at Ruth if she complains. The supervisor of all the servants - Appuhamy - gets up every morning and talks to the grave of John's father, Tom, mentioning that he does not like Ruth, and that her ways are cold and distant. Appuhamy should know because he is cold and distant to Ruth, who only wants to take her place as running the household, but between Appuhamy, her distant husband, and the ghost of her father-in-law she is pretty much ganged up on. So let's also throw in that this movie is somewhat like "Giant " too in that regard.

But a ray of sunshine is the presence of an Elephant Walk foreman, Dick Carver (Dana Andrews) who falls in love with Ruth at first sight. Ruth wants her marriage to work, but between a foreman with bedroom eyes, a very haunted and brooding husband, epidemics and elephants, her path is a hard one. How will this work out? I'd say in a visually spectacular way for the time, yet utterly predictable.

Paramount certainly put energy into designing Liz' fashions. While they were at it they should have maybe put more money into shooting on location. There are shots that are clearly on location in Ceylon. But then they will intersperse those shots with those that are obviously on some Hollywood lot with back projection of the countryside. When Liz and Dana Andrews take a horseback ride through the plantation, the cheesiness of the back projection ventures into Ed Wood territory.

There is an interesting backstory to the making of this film. Apparently Vivien Leigh was originally supposed to have the part of Ruth, but illness prevented it. At age 40 she would have looked almost as odd as the fresh young bride as Liz would have looked in1939 as Scarlet O'Hara given she was seven at the time.

In spite of good performances by the entire cast, the sum of the thing is rather hokey and overwrought. Still, since all but the "tent pole" studio era films made by Paramount are hard to find, I'd say give it a look if it ever comes your way.