Plot Sypnosis:
The Rains of Ranchipur (1955)—based on a Louis Bromfield novel and an earlier Twentieth Century Fox hit, The Rains Came (1939)—is a juicy, full-bore melodrama, directed by Fox’s own master of the genre, the great Jean Negulesco. Starring Lana Turner as a heartless vixen who first lures, then falls in love with an honorable Indian physician (Richard Burton), the film plays out against the magnificent sweep of the Indian subcontinent, torn by the harsher powers of nature and lushly photographed by Milton Krasner. Also starring Fred MacMurray as a potentially heroic drunk, Michael Rennie as Turner’s cruelly cuckolded husband, Eugenie Leontovich as a worldly-wise Maharani, and Joan Caulfield as a loyal innocent, the film is further highlighted by a romantic score from the incomparable Hugo Friedhofer (available here as an isolated track) and thrilling special effects that were nominated for an Academy Award.