The Monsoon (movie, 1939)

Synopsis

In India, Tom Ransome, a senior bourgeois official leads an opulent life between his conquests and his former wife Lady Edwina Esketh. She meets a young Indian doctor, Major Rama Safti, and falls in love with him. The town of Ranchipur is devastated by an earthquake, floods and a plague epidemic. Lady Esketh gives up her bourgeois life and decides to get involved with the sick, while staying with Rama Safti, whom she deeply loves. Unfortunately, following a moment of inattention, she is infected with a virus. Touched by the disease, she dies. Rama Safti will become the ruler of the kingdom. Tom Ransome will bond with a young missionary Fern.

Technical sheet

• Title: The Monsoon
• Original title: The Rains Came
• Director: Clarence Brown , assisted by Otto Brower (uncredited)
• Production: Darryl F. Zanuck and Harry Joe Brown associate producer
• Production and Distribution Company: 20th Century Fox
• Scenario: Philip Dunne and Julien Josephson from a book by Louis Bromfield
• Image: Arthur C. Miller and Bert Glennon (uncredited)
• Music: Alfred Newman
• Artistic direction: William S. Darling and George Dudley
• Sets: Thomas Little
• Costumes: Gwen Wakeling and Sam Benson (uncredited)
• Editing: Barbara McLean
• Country: United States
• Duration: 103 minutes
• Genre: Drama and Adventure Movie
• Format: Black and White – 35mm – 1.37: 1 – Sound: Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)
• Release dates: United States :  September 9 , 1939( New York ), September 15 , 1939(national exit); France :  March 13 , 1940

Distribution

• Myrna Loy : Lady Edwina Esketh
• Tyrone Power : Dr. Major Rama Safti
• George Brent : Thomas Ransome
• Brenda Joyce : Fern Simon
• Nigel Bruce : Lord Albert Esketh
• Maria Ouspenskaya : The Maharani
• Joseph Schildkraut : Mr. Bannerjee
• Mary Nash : M ^lle MacDaid
• Jane Darwell : Aunt Phoebe Smiley
• Marjorie Rambeau : M ^me Simon
• Henry Travers : Reverend Homer Smiley
• HB Warner : Maharajah Man Singh Bahadur
• Laura Hope Crews : Lily Hoggett-Egburry
• William Edmunds : Mr. Das
• George Regas (uncredited): Rajput

Around the film

• Filming April-June 1939 ¹ .

• The roles of Lady Esketh and Rama Safti were originally planned for Marlene Dietrich and Ronald Colman ^{2, respectively} .

• Producer Darryl F. Zanuck and Myrna Loy were in conflict during filming ³ .

• Myrna Loy , who was going through a difficult period in her married life, said in her autobiography that she fell in love with her partner Tyrone Power during the shooting of the film. Although they got along well, there was no relationship between them. However, she regretted that the actor was married actress Annabella this period ⁴ .

• Award of the 1939 Academy Award for special effects. Appointment for art direction, editing and music.

• Only foray Clarence Brown in a production company other than the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , the director came back saying that Fox was twenty years ahead of the technical side, but no one would believe him ⁵ .

• Remake of the film in 1955 by Jean Negulesco , under the title The Rains of Ranchipur , with Lana Turner and Richard Burton .

Notes and references