Elephant Walk
|
Our Price: $29.99 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $28.94 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Elephant Walk
Movie Review: Stop me if you've heard this one before...
Summary: 3 Stars
William Dieterle's Elephant Walk is basically Rebecca in the Naked Jungle, with a dead father replacing a dead wife, Abraham Sofaer made up to look surprisingly like Ben Kingsley in the Judith Anderson role and elephants bringing the house down instead of ants. This time it's Elizabeth Taylor (replacing an increasingly erratic Vivien Leigh, who is still reputedly visible in some long shots) as the nice English girl who discovers that her nice husband Peter Finch is still living in the terrible shadow of his father, who bloody-mindedly built their tea plantation bungalow across the path the elephants used to use to get to the river. While the elephants try to reassert their right of way, the rains are late and the natives go down with cholera, Liz falls for Dana Andrews' more clear-eyed overseer, but this being 1953 and as in thrall to the ghost of Daphne Du Maurier as Finch is to `The Governor', it's a foregone conclusion that this one will end in flames and the sanctity of marriage reaffirmed. Fairly typical studio product, but entertaining enough in its shamelessly derivative way. And don't forget to look out for the present the lead elephant leaves in its wake as it heads down the hill to Elephant Walk!
No extras, but the DVD boasts a good transfer in the original fullframe ratio.
Movie Review: Jungle Soap
Summary: 3 Stars
For a good two-thirds of "Elephant Walk" the film is bogged down by uninteresting melodramatics, namely a love triangle involving the film's principal actors(Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Finch, Dana Andrews). The last third of the film is redeemed by a compelling cholera epidemic and a well staged elephant stampede in the film's setting, a tea plantation in Ceylon. The main actors acquit themselves well despite the fact that they are participating in an opulently staged soap opera. Other pluses here are the stunning interior designs and gorgeous Edith Head creations. Of course, young Liz is stunning to look at. That said, if you want to check out a better plantation melodrama "The Naked Jungle" with Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker would be well worth your while.Movie Review: Good movie
Summary: 3 Stars
I remember watching this movie when I was younger and loved it, then!
It just didn't do for me now what it did back then. Still, I'm glad I bought it. It's nice to watch them good ol' classics when you don't have cable:) Besides, they don't make them like they use to!
Movie Review: Elizabeth at her most beautiful
Summary: 3 Stars
OK, it's not a great movie. But if you're fan of Ms. Taylor, your collection needs this movie. She's never look lovelier. The sets, costumes, music and sets are marvelous. I want that house! The story is a little bit of a rehash of "Rebecca."Movie Review: Pretty but silly
Summary: 2 Stars
This tepid melodrama concerns John Wiley, a rich tea planter (Peter Finch) who brings his new wife Ruth (Elizabeth Taylor) home to "Elephant Walk," his plantation in Ceylon. The palatial home was built (purposely) to block the wild elephants' path to water, and they have never forgiven the owners. Ruth finds the adjustment difficult as her loving, debonair groom turns into a drunken, boorish lout who cares more about entertaining his fellow planters than being with her. Enter the sensitive overseer (Dana Andrews) who takes a liking to Ruth and there's trouble in paradise.
This 1954 movie has exactly the same plot as "The Naked Jungle" which was also released that year, only with elephants instead of army ants. It was only partially filmed on location and those scenes are easy to spot as the colors are intensely bright and vivid with natural light. It's too bad they cut corners and filmed half of the movie indoors in front of stock footage. Going back and forth between real outdoors and fake outdoors is distracting, to say the least. Taylor is lovely to look at, but she and her co-stars overact to the point of being silly; she's too loud, wears ridiculous gowns for the jungle, and generally acts like a one-dimensional shrew. There is no romantic chemistry at all between her and Finch or Andrews; both men are wooden caricatures and unconvincing ones at that.
The best part of the movie is the finale which has hundreds of elephants storming the mansion, taking back their "walk." Mercifully, this signals the end of a long and overwrought movie which gives the viewer more opportunities to laugh than swoon.