Of Love Triangles and Elephant Stampedes

The 1954 film Elephant Walk did not receive much critical acclaim when it came out. In fact, most critics panned it. Still, that did not stop audiences from coming to see a love triangle set in the breathtakingly exotic landscape of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. The film was based on the book Elephant Walk by Robert Standish, which is the pseudonym of Digby George Gerahty.

While in a small town in England, John Wiley (Peter Finch) meets the beautiful bookshop clerk Ruth (Elizabeth Taylor) and after only a period of knowing each other, the two marry. Wiley owns a tea plantation in colonial England's Ceylon post World War II and the two move to the estate. The plantation is called "Elephant Walk" because it was built on the path elephants used to use to get to water and a large wall was built to keep the elephants at bay by Wiley's late father, who is buried at the plantation. The house is a glorious mansion and Ruth meets her husband's devoted servant Appuhamy (Abraham Sofaer), who has an unwavering devotion to Wiley and his dead father while he remains suspicious of her. Ruth also meets her husband's American overseer, Dick Carver (Dana Andrews), who tells her not to trust the legacy of Wiley's father. He tells her that Wiley's father "rules Elephant Walk even from the grave" and that local gossip states Wiley Sr. was a factor in his wife's death. Wiley throws a lavish party at which Ruth is the only woman and the men become rough and rowdy while Ruth is upstairs, trying to sleep. Like his father, Wiley is somewhat arrogant and self-involved and he tries to live up to his father's legacy, leading to many confrontation between him and Ruth. Wiley breaks his leg during some rough housing with his friends and Ruth asks Carver to come back to help her husband run his plantation. A romance develops between Ruth and Carver because of her husband's behavior and they plan to leave together, stalled by a cholera outbreak at the plantation. The story takes twists and turns as the love triangle becomes more complicated and the beautiful nature of Ceylon turns deadly.

The film was originally supposed to star Laurence Olivier and then wife Vivien Leigh in the lead roles of John and Ruth Wiley, but Olivier had a scheduling conflict with the film he was working on, The Beggar's Opera. Leigh worked on the film for a brief time but had to quit because she was suffering through a bout with bipolar disorder. There are still some scenes were Leigh can be found in the background. The film was made in Colombo, Ceylon, which is now Colombo, Sir Lanka. The elephants in the movie were trained and borrowed from the Cole Brothers Circus in Chicago.

Though I personally liked this film, reviews of it remain mixed. For a general synopsis, you can read this, thanks to Turner Classic Movies. The original New York Times review can be read here. This brief point based review is from weekly-movie-review.com, and this review was written by Dennis Schwartz on Ozus' World Movie Reviews. If you do not find the film believable, I think you can at least enjoy the beautiful native scenery, ritual, and costuming as well as the glamour of Elizabeth Taylor.