John Masters' sprawling novel of India on the eve of independence gets a lavish MGM filming, with a literal cast of thousands, adroitly managed by George Cukor, for whom this is a most atypical undertaking. He was known as a "women's director," and that much does apply here, for he guides Ava Gardner to perhaps her very best performance. She's Victoria, an unhappy Anglo-Indian heiress, whom the script forces to say at least 12 times that if she identifies as Indian the Brits won't accept her, and vice versa. Which leads her to pursue a number of romances, with restless revolutionary Bill Travers, mama's boy Francis Matthews, and ultimately British colonel Stewart Granger, who comes across as rather bland. She's also the victim of an attempted rape, rendered quite graphically by 1955 MGM standards. But.much else is whitewashed; Cukor complains in "On Cukor" that the violence was toned down by the front office, and Victoria's active love life didn't register well with preview audiences, causing the studio to tone a lot down and introduce a needless flashback framework. What's there is still impressive, with eye-filling location filming, some powerful scenes of revolt and ample atmosphere, and it suggests that Cukor could have handled epic spectacle as well as any David Lean if given the chance.
Review of Bhowani Junction
