Bhowani Junction (1956) on Netflix
Approved19561h 50mAdventureDramaHistory
In 1947, as British rule ends, Victoria Jones returns on leave to Bhowani, the town where she grew up. There, railway sabotage and protest push her to question her own identity.
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- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb6.4/102,283 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Victoria Jones is Anglo-Indian. Her mother was Indian, her father an English railway engineer, and she has served four years in the British Army. She comes home on leave to Bhowani in 1947, while Britain prepares to leave India. Gandhi's supporters campaign for independence, while communists under a revolutionary called Davay stir riots and sabotage. She meets Patrick Taylor, a rail traffic superintendent and a childhood sweetheart, and Colonel Rodney Savage, whose battalion has been posted to the town to keep order. When protesters disrupt the railway, Savage puts Victoria on duty and breaks up the crowds with force, which she does not approve of. Thinking about her future, she considers marrying a man from India, though Taylor still loves her and Savage is drawn to her.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bhowani Junction (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ava Gardner, a white American actress, was cast as Victoria Jones, a character the novel describes as having distinctly brown skin and being of partly Indian ancestry, a choice that profoundly changed the character from the book.
SPOILER
The film-makers changed the novel's ending: Patrick Taylor, Victoria's fellow Anglo-Indian suitor and a railway worker, is killed off, and Victoria ends up with the British officer Rodney Savage.- Because the shoot moved to Pakistan, the script was altered to put Rodney Savage in command of the 1/13 Frontier Force Battalion (Coke's Rifles) of the Pakistan Army's 7th (Golden Arrow) Division instead of the Gurkha battalion of the novel; Pakistani army and police helped with the filming.
- MGM wanted to shoot the film in India, but the Indian government insisted on script approval and imposed high taxes, so the production moved to Pakistan, whose government was more welcoming.
- Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger were announced as the film's leads almost immediately; Gardner had been suspended by MGM for refusing to appear in Love Me or Leave Me.
- Neelo, later a Pakistani film star, was introduced to director George Cukor by production manager and casting assistant A. H. Rana and made her first film appearance, as a reporter in a crowd scene.
