The Rains Came (1939)
At first I thought this was a post-war movie, which would make it a post-Independence movie for India from the British. And since the story starts in 1938, the events would seem to lead to that huge turnover, told Hollywood style. That was fine with me.
But no, and even better. Instead we have a pure drama that happens to be set in troubled India. World War II isn't even a fact for the film or the filmmakers, so the colonial feeling is quite sincere, and easy to poke a little fun at. In fact, the movie begins by making clear the snobbery of the British ruling elite, the women who want only the finest friends and the men who want only their frivolous jobs. The natives, the Indians themselves, have only a small presence, and the two Indian leaders are played by non-Indians, as was unfortunately usual for Hollywood at the time.
The drama starts slowly, and even when Myrna Loy finally appears (and she is terrific enough to make an instant difference) the actual story still winds its slow way along. George Brent as the leading man always colors a film because he's easy going and likable to the point of calmness, which can easily become dullness. Still, he's rock steady and I like him. And Tyrone Power, who as the devastating good looks to upend things, is kept in a reserved and steady role, too, playing an Indian doctor with clearly British training. There is a fourth main character, more of a cliché of sorts but important to the story, an overly young blonde and naive girl just over eighteen who wants Brent in every way. And seems by the middle flood scenes to get him where he is best got.
Yes, this is a love melodrama set in steamy, rainy, exotic India. As a drama it's good, though lacking some kind of drive to make it chilling or weepy or whatever might send it over the top. But there are aspects here that are really exceptional. One of them is the stunning job on the earthquake and flood scenes. Special effects being completely physical back then, it's astonishing how realistic it all is. There is some back projection, but no retouching or double exposure that I could see, and no computer graphics of course, just elaborate models and slow motion to fool you about the scale of everything. But beyond the feat of pulling it off is just the aesthetic handling of movement and space as the world crumbles, literally.
The scenes that follow the devastation are in flood stage with continuing rain, and it's pretty good stuff. And of course there's something of a metaphor to it all, the outsiders (mostly British, but some Americans, who of course don't have quite the same classist attitudes) feel just how outside they are. There is always, for them, the possibility to just leave, and a few no doubt do, but mostly people knuckle down and help with the disaster relief. Loy has been bored and spoiled until now, and she helps at the hospital, partly to be with the searing doctor. And Brent ends up helping, too (which we expect--he's a good guy) and his young hanger-on sticks to his side, maturing quickly.
"The English are an odd people," the Indian maharani says, and nothing is more true. There they are, these colonialists, sticking it out through really awful times, helping and and suffering equally. Yes, they have pampered lives compared to the common person there, but it's no picnic, the heat and disease and hardship. Toward the end Brent persuades Power to rise up from his sadness. You were "...born in the darkness and filth that was India. You are India. A new India!" This is a movie about rising up in general, being better, forgetting differences and also forgetting selfishness.
The director Clarence Brown has a handful of really terrific films in his career, and this one shows why--it's subtle and beautiful and also a bit epic in its own way. It's also gorgeously filmed, from the devastation to the smallest intimacies, all under the eye of Arthur Miller, a legend in cinematography already, and with some classics to come as well. Although meant to be filmed without flashy distraction, it's handled with enormous grace and depth. It's classy and classic stuff. And the music is typically dramatic and scored to follow the action by another great, Alfred Newman.
The chilling and beautiful opening titles that melt off each page in a dripping wash give a clue of what is to follow, with an ominousness latent throughout. Then, toward the end, after surviving catastrophe, a simple mistake, and a realization that time is short, and the drama becomes a weepy tragedy. It doesn't get any better than that!
