Elephant Walk ** (1954, Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch) – Classic Movie Review 6418

Elizabeth Taylor enlivens director William Dieterle’s tepid, clichéd 1954 potboiler adventure movie about a romantic triangle on a Ceylon tea plantation, based on the novel by Robert Standish.

Taylor plays lovely English rose Ruth Wiley, the new wife colonial plantation owner tea planter John Wiley (Peter Finch) brings back from England, and Dana Andrews plays Dick Carver, the estate manager who manages to throw a spanner in the Taylor-Finch marriage.

The stars show themselves as thorough professionals and troupers, everything looks lovely in Loyal Griggs’s Technicolor cinematography, and there is an amusing finale in which a herd of elephants rampage through Paramount’s lavish sets. But nothing quite stops it from being a silly farrago.

No wonder the original star, poor Vivien Leigh, had a breakdown during filming. She remains clearly visible in distant shots.

Also in the cast are Abraham Sofaer, Abner Biberman, Noel Drayton, Rosalind Ivan, Barry Bernard, Philip Tonge, Edward Ashley, and Leo Britt.

It is written by John Lee Mahin, produced by Irving Asher and scored by Franz Waxman.

Taylor’s son Michael Wilding Jr said when she died in 2011: ‘My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humour and love. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will forever in our hearts.’

She won Best Actress Oscars for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and BUtterfield 8.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6418

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