The River revisited: tragic tale of life and love in the British Raj during the 1920s
Black Narcissus author Rumer Godden bases her script on personal memories of growing up in the British Raj during the '20s, in this tale of love and loss.
As the colonial era reached its twilight in the 1950s, a spate of Hollywood films emerged that showed European-controlled African and Asian realms in an exotic, nostalgic light. British Africa in King Solomon's Mines (1950), French Polynesia in South Pacific (1958), and Hong Kong in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) were three prominent examples.
But in terms of artistry, they are continents away from The River (1951), an independent production by Kenneth McEldowney shot on location in India by French auteur Jean Renoir.
Although presumably set either shortly before or shortly after India's independence, The River is not specific to the political currents that embroiled the region. Black Narcissus author Rumer Godden based her script on personal memories of growing up in the British Raj during the '20s. The film's central character is Godden's alter ego, Harriet (14-year-old Patricia Walters), a gawky Bengal-born British girl raised on the banks of the Ganges.
There she leads a dreamy, placid existence with her expat parents (Nora Swinburne and Esmond Knight) and siblings, who are more at home in Asia than Britain. The focus is on Harriet and best friends Valerie (Adrienne Corri), a budding vixen on the verge of womanhood, and Melanie (Radha Burnier), a half-British, half-Indian girl coming to terms with her mixed heritage.
The scenario's central event is the arrival of Captain John (Thomas E. Breen), a young American veteran who lost a leg during an unidentified war and journeys to the subcontinent to pick up the strands of his life. He becomes an object of desire for the teenage lasses, setting off ripples that presage the more turbulent whirlpools on the horizon. But the story is secondary to the overall mood and style.
Holding the episodic tale together is the voice-over of a more mature Harriet, vocalised by June Hillman. The teen's heartbreak at seeing an embrace between Captain John and Valerie, for instance, is poignantly underscored by the older Harriet's reminiscence, "My first kiss but received by another."