User reviews

'Bhowani Junction' was one of the few movies where Ava Gardner was allowed to be more than just a beautiful, but inanimate statue. As Victoria Jones, she emotes in ways that one rarely sees her do. Like her character Julie in 'Showboat' Victoria is bi-racial, which is the main theme of the movie. The Pakistani backdrop is gorgeously photographed and it's certainly a testament to location shooting as opposed to studio backdrops. Unsurprisingly, it was well directed by Cukor, especially the interior, dramatic scenes that he is so famous for. The final sequence is a break from that, however, with darkly lit chases and murder. An entertaining diversion; certainly one that fans of Gardner would want to catch.

Spectacular screen translation of John Masters' novel carried out by M-G-M set in post -colonial India. This is a drama aflame with Love And Revolt . Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India . Meanwhile , Indu Victoria to be courted by three suitors , Col. Rodney Savage (Stewart Granger , this role gave hem a strenuous time along with Scaramouche , Beau Brummell and Moonfleet) , Ranjit Kasel (Francis Matthews) and Patrick Taylor (Bill Travers , though Sabu tested for, and was nearly cast in the role) .

This dramatic picture contains a meaty plot , thrills , unrest , violence , love and historical events dealing with pre-independence India . This colorful picture gave Ava Gardner , Stewart Granger and co-stars a good time . Stewart Granger is fine as a colonel who falls in love for Ava . Gorgeous Ava Gardner as a half-English , half-Indian woman who is torn between the British officer she loves and her country . Gardner was trampled on by more than 200 native extras , then shaken and bruised in a staged fight with soldiers ; some years later , Ava declared it the toughest picture she ever worked on . Support cast is frankly well , such as Abraham Sofaer as Surabhai , Lionel Jeffries as Lt. Graham McDaniel , Freda Jackson as Sandani , Peter Illing as Ghanshyam and Francis Matthews who said in interviews that huge chunks of his part ended up on the cutting room floor ; in addition , Edward Chapman was hired to play Jones after the scenes had been shot with another actor playing the role . Furthermore , a right make-up to appear American actors like Indian people .

Evocative as well as glowing cinematography by Freddie Young shot on location in Pakistan . The filming took place in Pakistan rather than India for political reasons due to the scenes of Hindu terrorism including against Ghandi himself. Emotive and intense musical score by the classic Miklos Rozsa . The motion picture was well directed by George Cukor , though contains some flaws . This excellent filmmaker directed 20 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances . Cukor enjoyed a successful working partnership with Katharine Hepburn, directing her in ten films over a period of 47 years such as ¨Little women¨, ¨The Philadelphia story¨, ¨Adam's rib¨ , ¨Pat and Mike¨, among others . He was often regarded as a "women's director" because his films frequently are centered around strong female characters . Cukor directed many adaptations of books & plays and was known to be particularly skilled at interpreting stage plays for the screen .

This film could have been wonderful if some of the parts had been given to Indian actors. For instance, Hollywood and British studios make believe that Indians speak English in a sing-song manner. They might have heavy accents but few speak English that way. Freda Jackson's role as "the Sadani" (could it have been an ignorant variation of "Sardarni"?) was incredibly stupid casting in that she spoke impeccable English for a middle-class Sikh lady. This apart Jackson was able to dominate her screen time.

I would have liked to dismiss this film as a below average film but for the incredible performance of Ava Gardner who towers over all else in the movie. Take her accent--for an American, there was no trace of her origins when she spoke. She alone looked real with raven black hair in a sari draped in foppish manner--after all she was an Anglo-Indian. Had she worn well like an Aishwarya Rai, Cukor would have got it wrong.

Cukor deserves full credit for choosing Gardner for the role and for capturing the ambiance of romantic North Western Railways, its first class coaches, the engines and goods wagons. A keen observer will note that some of the shots of goods wagons showed vintage wagons, while others showed contemporary ones.

Though shot in Pakistan, the film caught the Indian ambiance perfectly, right up to the Railway quarters for its staff.

Ava Gardner, it is only too evident, performed well under the guidance of good directors as John Houston. This film and "Night of Iguana" are my personal favourites among her films.

Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones (Ava Gardner) kisses British soldier Col. Rodney Savage (Stewart Granger) goodbye as India gains independence in 1947. He recounts the story years earlier as the political situation heats up. Patrick Taylor (Bill Travers) is an arrogant Anglo-Indian with an eye for Victoria. Surabhai is a troublesome resistance leader who is struggling to maintain non-violence while Davay is a mysterious resistance fighter using violence of all kinds. The country falls into chaos. Victoria kills a British officer in self-defense and her family covers it up.

The character is mixed race and it's standard practice to cast a white actress. Ava Gardner is doing some overwrought acting. Sometimes it fits but in some instances, I would like her to dial it down. The character is dealing with some big melodrama and internally conflicted about her race. It's an interesting path to be caught in between and not fit into either worlds. The Indian freedom fighters don't come off looking well. Surabhai is shown as foolish and Davay is cold-hearted. The movie does lean slightly towards the British although there is the sleazy Captain McDaniel. I don't really buy Victoria getting away with the killing. There are some great set pieces. The train crash is epic. This is an interesting historical drama.

I watched this expecting the normal 50's play on British India and found a morality tale. The approach was a pleasant surprise. The first half dealt with the prejudice toward half Indian and English by both sides. Any comment applied to "wogs" etc could have been the N word in America. This was made in 1956!!!

Of course the 2ed half became the Granger-Gardner love story and get the bad guy but still fun. Ava was sexy as hell and Stewart was dashing. HIP HIP HORAY! Their children would be "1/4 wog". The ending was a bit much but still fun.

This movie belongs on DVD and soon. I highly recommend this as a fun movie with A blast at hate.

Well, I've always sort of identified myself as an AngloBanglo.

My dad was born in Lahore in 1929 and my grandparents left Karachi in 1965 almost 20 years after partition because the Muslims had made it impossible for my Nana to continue to run her private school.

The returned to England like so many AngloBanglos where they were too Indian for the white and not Indian enough for the Indians.

Just like they were back in what was then Pakistan and by some account, India itself.

You have to remember that at this point, as depicted in the film, 1947 was the cusp of partition and violence was everywhere. My grandfather told me graphic stories of entire trains of people slaughtered he had witnessed.

Ava Gardner's character has to choose which side she is on but for many AngloBanglos the struggle goes on. We are neither brown enough for the browns, nor white enough for the whites. I now live in Canada but I self identify as English.

The sub text in George Cukor's story has lost some of it's impact over time because few remember the upheaval of partition but for some of us, it bring it back into focus.

More interesting to me is that it was released the year I was born, in England, in 1956.

Produced barely a handful of years after the tumultuous period in question, the film delves further into events and attitudes that would have been comparatively unfamiliar to North American audiences - perhaps explaining, in part, its middling box office performance.

One can only speculate as to whether the project was part of a Cold War ploy to woo India away from its affection for Russia; however, dialogue early on does make specific reference to worries about Russian influence. If there's any validity to that speculation, then its ambitions extended beyond the box office (and might have been realized..?).

I agree with those commending director Cukor for his handling of the wide screen spectacle and action. I suspect that Richard Attenborough took notes from Cukor's visual approach in pre-planning his "Gandhi." Yes, other directors (e.g., Victor Fleming, Gone With the Wind, to mention but one) achieved more memorable tableaux; but this was an honourable entry in a still-evolving format at the time.

I'll yield to others' opinions on the performances - with the exception that I found Bill Travers's character and his portrayal were a one-note annoyance throughout. I mean, at least get a dialogue coach and find a credible accent, already!

It would be interesting to recover Cukor's original cut of the film, notwithstanding the apparently negative audience reactions at the time. The voice over post-facto narrative technique the studio imposed was hackneyed even then.

If you're not hooked in the first scene seeing Ava Gardner in the white blouse you'd better check your pulse.

Unfortunately, the movie isn't as interesting as Ava is gorgeous.

Sure, there are a lot of expensive-looking set pieces involving hundreds of extras and decent action (of sorts). It's as beautifully shot as any movie of the 50s.

But the story. First we get a preachy talkfest about Indian independence. Then there is the lurid attempted rape scene, whreupon it becomes a cheap crime drama.

The writing is so weak that at one point Ava is forced to tell an embarrassingly bad limerick to a friend in the bar. There is too much narration. And then the scene in the temple where she is imagining(?) all those voices in her head. Gave me a headache.

The less said about the total lack of chemistry between Gardner and Granger, the better.

This movie has the production values to be an epic. And the writing of a high school drama. Ava's luminescent performance is thus tragically wasted. She deserved much, much better.

Nonetheless, watch it to understand why Frank Sinatra left his first wife for Ava and adored her for the rest of her life, decades after their divorce. She was a knockout.

The setting for Bhowani Junction is India during the last days of the British Raj. The town of Bhowani is a railroad junction and both the Congress Party and the Communist Party are doing all kinds of sabotage to help the British quickly get out of India. Of course each is doing it for their own reasons.

Two people who may have given the outstanding performances of their careers are Ava Gardner and Bill Travers. Both play bi-racial people who don't fit in either society. But they react differently. Gardner is going through a whole lot of angst, really seeing both the British and Indian point of view. How she missed an Oscar nomination here is beyond me.

Bill Travers is the railroad station manager and his whole life is his job. He focuses narrowly on that and his tunnel vision leaves him oblivious to the momentous changes around him. Except for the fact that when the British leave he might lose that little piece of authority where he is, that which gives him stature in the Raj society.

The issues are complex, but in the hands of a great director like George Cukor the characters and their struggles become real and even more important, the audience becomes interested.

Stewart Granger who was the British Colonel in charge of the whole mess in Bhowani, said that Bhowani Junction was one of the few films he was really proud to be associated with. He has a struggle to, he really does see the Indians as human beings and not just "wogs." He's quite knowledgeable about their customs and at one point utilizes that knowledge to unjam that railroad terminal.

Bhowani Junction is an intelligent and literate drama and a superb piece of film making.

During the chaotic final days of British rule in northwest India in 1947, the beautiful daughter (Gardner) of an English train engineer and an Indian mother struggles to find her identity while pursued by three men: a rail-traffic superintendent (Bill Travers), his Sikh subordinate (Francis Matthews) and a British colonel (Stewart Granger). Meanwhile Indian supporters of Mahatma Gandhi campaign for independence while Communists, led by a revolutionary called Davay (Peter Illing), fuel unrest.

"Bhowani Junction" (1956) is an exotic drama with adventure elements similar to the future "A Passage to India" (1985), although not as good as that one. It features most of the elements you'd think of when India comes to mind - never-ending throngs of people in (usually) white garb, trains, street commotion, etc.

Ava is beautiful, Granger makes for a stalwart male protagonist, the locations are authentic and the historical setting is interesting. But I rolled my eyes at the subplot regarding a certain person feeling guilty about something, which didn't make sense since what that person did was in self-defense and the perpetrator was an ignoble scumbag.

The movie runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Lahore, Pakistan, which is just across the border from northwestern India; the train wreck sequence was done 35 miles outside London to the southwest; another sequence was shot at Tram Tunnel, Kingsway, London, while studio stuff was done at the MGM British Studios just north of the city.

GRADE: B-/C+

Greatly enjoyed this film about the British withdrawing from India and the wonderful photography and the great scenery. However, Ava Gardner,(Victoria Jones),"City On Fire",'79 looked simply beautiful, considering she tried to keep up with Frank Sinatra on the fast track of real life. Victoria Jones played the role of a very tricky gal, who twisted men around her little finger and pretended to be someone else other than herself. Stewart Granger, (Col. Rodney Savage),"The Wild Geese",'78, was a very clever military soldier and kept a close eye on Victoria for more reasons than only one. There is great acting between Gardner and Stewart who were at the height of their careers. Enjoy.

I am an Anglo-Indian, and feel many aspects of film were well portrayed, the idea of being "mixed up" was put forth quite well. However, I can't really relate to Victoria, as I am of a younger AI generation, who grew up in independent India, I see myself as Indian first and Anglo second.

I have to second the first comment, the use of non-Indian actors, is both annoying and insulting! India produces more films than Hollywood, has quite an extensive roster of actors, surely, George Cukor could have cast Indians in those roles. To think he made a movie about Indians, and not casting Indian actors, is absurd!

Stars are the primary reason for me to watch old movies, because they just don't make them like that anymore. 'Bowani Junction' provides some of the best; Ava Gardner is so irresistibly attractive in this movie that watching her along is worth every penny spent for buying the copy. Better yet, other things in the film are also good. Granger, playing a more realistic role, is at his best elements as a daring arrogant English Col., match nicely with the beautiful Gardner as a romantic couple. Most of the Indian characters are well portrayed and I love movie with a historical background . The story is complicated ,yet well told and paced. The characters are interesting and well presented. Over all, this is Cukor's movie at its usual fine standard.

This one is not to miss for fans of Granger, Gardner, and Hollywood oldies.

I think you have to tip your hat to George Cukor for his handling of the (many) mob (and disaster) scenes. The mobs may have gotten out of control, but Cukor was firmly in charge. The camera work is thrilling; the feeling of near-panic and claustrophobia intense. What could have been chaos on the set was handled so well--by the director and the very people in the streets protesting for the camera and, eventually, rioting. Hats off to the "mob."

I didn't care for Ava. Gardner in this. For one thing, she was no longer the Ava Gardner who was so bewitching in The Bribe. For another, she came across as a shrew in her argumentative scenes. Stewart Granger was quite credible, and the pace of his "evolution" from strict martinet to likable lover was believable.

So, too, was the plot believable. I learned something of the history of India from this movie.

The epic "Bhowani Junction" took two years in production (1954-55) including the location shooting in Lahore, Pakistan. It is a great melodrama that circumvents the tumultuous times and events unfolding Sub-continent's partition and the socio-political upheaval associated with it.

The perplexed minds and characters of Anglo Indians filled with angst were the signs of those turbulent times as the British pack up for their home country in the aftermath of India's partition and Independence. Ava Gardner as Victoria Jones has outperformed in all facets of her central character in the movie, as she perfectly translates her persona and body language which is in complete sync with the abnormal circumstances taking new twists and turns of fate with every passing day. Stewart Granger as Col. Rodney Savage is equally superb in his majestically mature performance who takes hold of a crisis like situation on Bhowani Junction (shot on actual location of gigantic Lahore Railway station) with wisdom, sagacity and the grit to out maneuver the machinations of Hindu rebels or trouble makers. That were trying times and the British colonialists had to deal with unusual challenging situations.

The screenplay and direction by George Cukor speaks for itself and I personally feel that this gem of a movie is underrated and unfortunately did not do a roaring business on the box office, but for all the glory that was Hollywood during that golden era of cinema, Bhowani Junction presents a complete feature film coupled with cinema-scope colour production, evocative musical score composed by Miklos Rozsa,thoughtful direction, superb cast and wonderful acting skills of those classic actors of a bygone age. (Ten out of ten). A must see for serious viewers.

An Ava Gardner vehicle from 1956 directed by George Cukor (My Fair Lady/Adam's Rib). Told in flashback by her English officer boyfriend, played by Stewart Granger, we learn of Gardner, a mixed breed of Brit & Indian nationalities, working w/her boyfriend at a train station in India post WWII. The Indians are resentful of their British minders & factions of terrorists are brewing in the midst of the peaceful populace so when a cache of explosives goes missing & then used, the Brits pool their efforts to capture the fugitive who led the bombing. Meanwhile, Gardner struggles to fit into either world & after breaking up w/her boyfriend (who longs to embrace his Brit side but soon becomes boorish about it) she finds herself w/a new Indian beau who comes to her rescue (along w/his mother & the mad bomber in question) after she kills a soldier who attempted to rape her. Even though Gardner & Granger's relationship is rocky from the get go, they soon find common ground where she's able to disclose to him about the rape attempt & the location of the bomber setting up the last third of the film where the bomber takes her hostage while planning to bomb another train (w/a historical figure on board) w/Granger racing to her rescue. I'd love to see a remake of this story since it touches upon a lot of hot button topics that come 70 years on we still grapple w/as a species but here, due to the times in which the film was made, we ultimately still have a damsel in distress (even though as limned the potential for a stronger character was a possibility) who gets dragged by her alpha male compatriots from one side of the screen to the other not really filling in that circle they were hoping to cover.

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.

This is a beautifully shot, and well acted movie. It is almost faithful to the book and a good portrait of the chaos at the end of the second world war. Ava Gardner is luminous as always, and Stewart Granger a good foil for her.

A film for those who like history and large-scale analog cinematography in the classic mode. While it departs in certain details from the original novel, and while it did not score well at the box office, Bhowani Junction stands in retrospect as a monument to filmmaking excellence in the epic age of Hollywood, with a fine script, great historical verisimilitude, gigantic production values, and excellent performances all around, most especially by a ravishing Ava Gardner as a half-Indian, half-English minor officer in the British colonial corps, and by Stewart Granger as her commanding officer. The star-crossed pair eventually find love amidst the coming departure of the British from India, encountering Gandhi's cadres of non-violent resistors, scheming and marauding Communists directed from Moscow, and the sexual and racial politics and ambiguities of the late colonial period. The titling styles of films in this era can feel dated, but who cares---all in all this is great stuff, and an entirely educational and pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.