The movie begins without much promise but at least it's tolerable as Diana Douglas arrives by bus at a village in India along with her fiance, George Nader, and his mother, Ellen Corby. She wants to introduce them to her father, Philip Stainton, and brother, Myron Healey. Then Ursula Thiess arrives on the scene. She's supposed to be Diana's younger sister but looks nothing like her and speaks in a completely different accent. George and Ursula go for a walk and -- shazam! -- fall madly in love. They take shelter from a storm that night in an abandoned building and talk and talk and talk. It's all very dull and pretentious in the manner of a bad off-Broadway play and even George Nader taking his shirt off and walking about bare-chested can't save it.
4 Reviews
All Wet
kapelusznik1815 March 2015
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** Waterlogged and confusing movie about an American couple Burton played the hairy & handsome George Nader and Julia played by Kirk Douglas' first wife Diana Douglas who come to visit Julia's parents in far off India, how on earth did they end up there?,to get acquainted with each other. There's also Burton's mom Katie played by Ellen Corby the "Screaming Women" in the 1947 film noir classic "They don't believe me" who's anything but happy in the dilapidated state that Julia's family home is in. This sets thing up for what's to come later on in the movie with who's to be the hottest girl in town Julia's hot blooded sister Jeanette, Ursula Thiess, shows up on the scene who not only has top billing in the movie but who also tries to steal Burton away from her.
We also get to see the the "Wise old Man" of the village 30 year old Rault, Myron Healey, Julia's beatnik, years before the word beatnik was coined, good for nothing leach of a brother who seems, in not doing anything to support himself and his family, to be living off the fat of the land without contributing anything to it! Burton who tries to stay faithful to his future wife Julia gets sidetracked by the hot as a pistol Jeanette who wants him, by marrying her, to get her out of marrying the richest man in town the snobbish unattractive and dome headed, compared to the hairy Burton, Molac, Eric Pohlmann.
***SPOILERS*** As Jeanette turns on the heat on the by now confused Burton, in being torn between two women, the summer monsoon rolls into town cooling off things for everyone involved in this strange love triangle in them trying to stay dry and not end up getting drowned by it. Burton is manipulated by Jeanette by her threatening suicide if he doesn't marry her only to have his faïence Julie beat her to the punch or, by cutting her wrist with a broken piece of glass, slash. In the end Burton comes to his senses and leaves with the recovering for her suicide attempt Julia and the heart broken Jeanette is left to marry Molac. The good news if you can make sense of it is Jeanette telling the by now totally confused Burton that he'll always be in her heart and her marriage to Molac has nothing at all to do with love.
We also get to see the the "Wise old Man" of the village 30 year old Rault, Myron Healey, Julia's beatnik, years before the word beatnik was coined, good for nothing leach of a brother who seems, in not doing anything to support himself and his family, to be living off the fat of the land without contributing anything to it! Burton who tries to stay faithful to his future wife Julia gets sidetracked by the hot as a pistol Jeanette who wants him, by marrying her, to get her out of marrying the richest man in town the snobbish unattractive and dome headed, compared to the hairy Burton, Molac, Eric Pohlmann.
***SPOILERS*** As Jeanette turns on the heat on the by now confused Burton, in being torn between two women, the summer monsoon rolls into town cooling off things for everyone involved in this strange love triangle in them trying to stay dry and not end up getting drowned by it. Burton is manipulated by Jeanette by her threatening suicide if he doesn't marry her only to have his faïence Julie beat her to the punch or, by cutting her wrist with a broken piece of glass, slash. In the end Burton comes to his senses and leaves with the recovering for her suicide attempt Julia and the heart broken Jeanette is left to marry Molac. The good news if you can make sense of it is Jeanette telling the by now totally confused Burton that he'll always be in her heart and her marriage to Molac has nothing at all to do with love.
Haunting depiction of cultural absorption
barnowl-214 August 2007
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this film on TV in 1969 and have forgotten details but still remember its emotional impact. An Englishman (Philip Stainton) is living in India and has largely "gone native." He lives with his daughter (Ursula Thiess) by an Indian woman. Her older half sister (Diane Douglas), full blooded English, comes to visit with her fiancé (George Nader), also English. Nader is attracted to the younger sister, and she falls in love with him. But in the end he leaves with the older white sister. Aware of his younger daughter's loss, the father suspects she will be absorbed fully into Indian culture. In a final scene we see her standing alone before a huge religious statue, sitar music playing, she dwarfed by the immense spirituality of the Indian subcontinent. We know she has found peace and refuge - the price being resignation to profound obscurity and total abandonment of the ambitions of the Western world. Many viewers will wonder if they themselves might, in some way, have made the same choice in years past, instead of commencing the endless climb.
Hardly a man is now alive...
Furb30 October 2002
woman] who has seen this movie and [the hard part] remembers it. I refer to it as the "least discussed movie in th IMDB."
Anyway, I wouldn't remember it except that at the time, I thought it was the strangest pic I'd seen. The plot was straight TV fare, but the characters seemed to all be in a different movie. They seemed to only cooperate where it was necessary to move the plot along. When it showed up on TV years later, I watched it a few times to see if I'd remembered it's strangeness... I did, and about that time I added the Peck/Basehart version of Moby Dick to the "strange" list.
In Moby Dick, the characters seemed to move through the story as do the characters in Monsoon. Of cours, they had the advantage that we all knew the Moby Dick story, so in trying for a "fresh" presentation, a lot of what the characters did they did without any motivation that I could figure out. So I watched Moby Dick a few times, but I just never "got it."
Anyway, I wouldn't remember it except that at the time, I thought it was the strangest pic I'd seen. The plot was straight TV fare, but the characters seemed to all be in a different movie. They seemed to only cooperate where it was necessary to move the plot along. When it showed up on TV years later, I watched it a few times to see if I'd remembered it's strangeness... I did, and about that time I added the Peck/Basehart version of Moby Dick to the "strange" list.
In Moby Dick, the characters seemed to move through the story as do the characters in Monsoon. Of cours, they had the advantage that we all knew the Moby Dick story, so in trying for a "fresh" presentation, a lot of what the characters did they did without any motivation that I could figure out. So I watched Moby Dick a few times, but I just never "got it."
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