Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

James Hitchcock Lord Esketh, a British aristocrat, and his glamorous American wife, Edwina, are touring India and staying in the city of Ranchipur, where they are guests of the local Maharani. (The action is supposed to be set in India, even though we see a prominently displayed Pakistani flag in an early scene). Their marriage is an unhappy one and each despises the other. Edwina despises her husband because she sees him as weak and cowardly and because he only married her for her money. (She is an independently wealthy heiress). He despises her because he sees her as cold and heartless; we learn that she has been unfaithful to him with a number of different men. While in Ranchipur Edwina meets and has an affair with a young suntanned Welshman in a turban. Well, actually Richard Burton's character is supposed to be an Indian, Dr Safti, a physician and the adopted son of the Maharani. Today, the idea of a white actor in "brownface" playing an Indian would strike most people as politically incorrect, but was an accepted practice in the fifties, and at least Burton's performance is a lot less insensitive than that given by Peter Sellers in "The Millionairess" from a few years later. (Sellers was also playing an Indian doctor). Watching the film, I wondered if the use of the Christian name "Edwina" was a veiled reference to Edwina Mountbatten, another independently wealthy heiress, married to a British aristocrat, who visited India and was rumoured to have had an affair with an Indian man, in her case the politician Jawaharlal Nehru. I understand, however, that "The Rains of Ranchipur" is a remake of "The Rains Came" from 1939 (which I have never seen), and that the character had the same name both in this film and in the 1937 novel on which it was based. As the Mountbattens did not come to India until 1947, the coincidence was presumably unintentional. The Edwina-Safti romance is the mainspring of the plot, but for all Edwina's good looks she is so obviously spoilt, selfish and promiscuous that it is difficult to imagine any man, let alone one as intelligent and idealistic as Dr Safti, falling hopelessly in love with her. There is a subplot involving another romance between Tom Ransome, an alcoholic former lover of Edwina and close friend of Safti, and Fern, the daughter of a local missionary, but this arouses little interest. The acting is generally undistinguished. Burton, as though embarrassed by having been cast in a role to which he was ill-suited, is horribly stilted and wooden, giving by far his worst performance in any film of his which I have seen. The Russian-born Eugenie Leontovich as the Maharani is no more convincing as an Indian than is Burton. Lana Turner as Edwina and Fred MacMurray as Tom were both capable of much better things than this. Probably the best is Joan Caulfield as Fern. The intention seems to have been to contrast Fern's youth and innocence with the cynicism and corruption of the experienced older woman Edwina, so it is perhaps surprising that Caulfield, who at 33 was only a year younger than Turner, was cast in the role, but she is fresh and youthful-looking enough to succeed in making the contrast an effective one. The best thing about the film is its special effects. Although "The Rains of Ranchipur" is not a "disaster movie" in the sense that the film-makers of the seventies would have understood the term, an earthquake and the subsequent flood after the earthquake destroys a dam play important roles in the story. These scenes are very well done, are still convincingly impressive even in the era of CGI and the main reason why I have given the film an average mark. Unfortunately, there is little else to make the film worth watching today. Special effects apart, it is the sort of dull, turgid and implausible melodrama which typified Hollywood at its worst during the fifties. 5/10

jotix100 The second retelling of Louis Bromfield's novel was clearly a vehicle for its star, Lana Turner in a Twentieth Century Fox production after she had left her glory days at MGM. Directed by Jean Negulesco with a screen treatment by Merle Miller, the 1955 film showed recently on a classic channel.The story combines equal parts of romance and tragedy. In those days the special effects were not exactly the same as what can be achieved with computers and new techniques. The best thing in the film is the sequence of the earthquake after weeks of unending torrential rains. The rest of the story deals with Edwina, a rich woman, who can pick and discard men as she sees fit, which is the case with the man one first sees her with, Lord Esketh.It does not take long after she arrives in Ranchipur to spot the handsome Indian Dr. Safti, with whom she falls in love, creating a scandal in the local society, ruled with an iron fist by the Maharani, a no nonsense woman who knows Edwina is no good for the hunky doctor. Then there is the drunk expatriate Tom Ransome, who is drinking himself to oblivion among the higher classes and gets the eye of Fern Simon, an impressionable young woman. Everything is shattered by the arrival of the earthquake and the breaking of the dam over the river that wreaks havoc among the poor native population.The result was a glossy picture that looks sadly dated, The performances are what one expect of this cast. Mr. Negulesco's direction does not bring anything new to the story. Watch it as a curiosity of that era.

eyecandyforu This film is one of those movies I sit through ("Elephant Walk" being another good example) for the special effects laden climaxes. "The Rains" is one of the greatest examples of Hollywood miscasting and racial bait and switch ever. First we have Richard Burton as Dr. Safti, a HINDU doctor. He plays the role like a weak rabbit in costumes that make his macho form especially wimpy. Eugenie Leontovich plays the Grand Diva of Ranchipur "The Maharani" who tries valiantly to out-diva Lana Turner but alas, fails. Both are unconvincing but the camp factor is worth the experience. Fred MacMurray has a turn as a drunk with a heart of gold and Michael Rennie is wasted as Lana's husband. Then there is Ms. Turner. Playing a poor little rich girl to the hilt, she manages to be uber glamorous even in the midst of a deadly fever. The romance between Turner and Burton is embarrassing in a "I love you but I really can't back it up" kind of way, and you start rooting for the rains to do their thing. When they finally get going, it's a good old-fashioned disaster movie for a while with heroics all around, then it's back to the potboiler and a disappointing ending. If you want a fake Bollywood extravaganza with Lana Turner getting drenched in high heels, this is your film.As a postscript to this review, if you want to see the real thing, check out the 1939 classic "The Rains Came", a much more entertaining, higher quality version with a very, very different outcome. It makes this one look like a bad made for TV movie.

Greg Couture Oh, dear! One of my favorite mid-Fifties Twentieth-Century Fox CinemaScopuses was nearly ruined for me a few years back when Bette Midler released her comedy album, "Mud WILL Be Flung, Tonight!" in which she does an elaborate routine in her character as "Soph" in bed with her boyfriend, "Ernie" who excuses himself to use the loo. When she hears certain sounds emanating from the bathroom, upon his return to the boudoir she demands: "Ernie, what the hell was that?!?" and he advises: "Soph, those were the Rains of Raunch-I-Poor!!" The routine goes on to appropriate a few other famous movie titles like "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "The Winds of Krakatoa" (i.e., "Krakatoa, East of Java")...well, you get the idea, I would guess!Anyway, Ms. Midler, no respecter of popular culture when it comes to her usually successful attempts at camp humor in her standup comedy routines, probably enjoyed this elaborate remake as much as I did, if she's ever seen it. 20th-Century Fox assembled a nicely balanced cast and assigned some top-flight professionals to give the whole thing the kind of gloss that's pretty much a thing of the past now. Of special note are the Academy Award-nominated special effects, rather convincing when I saw this on a big CinemaScope screen; some very nice use of DeLuxe Color (everyone looks handsome indeed, especially Miss Turner); and Hugo Friedhofer's tasteful score. (He was a composer who always successfully resisted producers' attempts to add music to an excessively gloppy extent and he was often astute in adding an exotic touch, where appropriate, with just a few bars of orchestration.) By the way I don't think, contrary to another comment here, that the production sent a second unit to Pakistan or anywhere outside of California. I might be wrong, since the opening sequence with Lord and Lady Esketh arriving by train into a bustling Indian metropolis is a terrific example of Hollywood fakery if it's not the real thing. There's one brief shot, however, where a limousine is seen turning into the supposed gates of the Maharani's compound and it is unmistakably the West Gate of Bel-Air, one of West Los Angeles' poshest subdivisions.