SYNOPSIS: English socialite falls for young, handsome Indian doctor. Setting: Ranchipur. Time: 1936.NOTES: Winner of the inaugural Academy Award for Best Special Effects (defeating a solid line-up including Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Only Angels Have Wings and Union Pacific). Also nominated for: Art Direction (won by GWTW); Sound (When Tomorrow Comes), Film Editing (GWTW); and Original Music Score (Wizard of Oz).One of the top money-making films of 1939-40. Remade in 1955 as The Rains of Ranchipur.COMMENT: Clarence Brown was borrowed from MGM to direct "The Rains Came". Considering the emasculation Bromfield's novel had suffered in its transfer to scenario form, Brown was an excellent choice. At his best (as here), Brown directs with both pace and polish, drawing winning performances from his players and highlighting the artistry of sets, costumes and photographic effects. Brown's professionalism is so skilled that it is only on a third or fourth viewing one can fully appreciate the smooth dexterity of his style. True, Brown has occasionally used a floridly flowing camera to good effect (The Eagle, Anna Karenina), but here his dollying and tracking work is less obtrusive. The essence of his approach is to highlight the characters against the magnificent decors and backgrounds created by the art directors and to allow the spectacle of earthquake, flood, fire and plague to fully engage our sympathy. Brown is first and foremost a superior craftsman to whom the cinema is primarily an outlet for mass entertainment. As such, he is not highly regarded by auteur theorists who spend their lives searching movies for "significant themes". Often these theorists, having little or no practical knowledge of movie-making, ascribe ideas and recurrent themes to directors who simply found these qualities in the scripts they were assigned. Certainly Brown did not want to be "lent" to 20th Century- Fox for "The Rains Came". He had no interest in the book, the themes or the picture. But once the deal was concluded, he bent every effort to ensure the film was as stylish and visually appealing as possible. In this aim, he has succeeded so admirably it doesn't really matter that Bromfield's civilized, complex narrative has been reduced to a simplistic inter-racial romance.With the actors too, Brown has excelled. Brent is much less wooden than usual. In fact, he's so pleasantly amenable, it's difficult to believe he's the dissolute character painted by the script. Myrna Loy is equally proficient (and more believably cast) as the world- weary, cynically amorous socialite who wants to get away from it all. This is a most unusual characterization for her in that the part is almost that of an anti-heroine — but she brings it off superbly — making a wonderful contrast with a fresh- faced innocent who wants to get into it all, so zestfully played by Brenda Joyce (her film debut. Regrettably, although she went on to fame as Tarzan's Jane, she never had another role half so captivating). Tyrone Power plays the major with dignity and seemingly effortless ease, although in point of fact he has really nothing much to do. The writers have given the doctor little in the way of color or character shadings. He's probably the most one-dimensional character in the film. We are even spared most of the usual romantic agonizing because his problems are solved by careless chance. Aside from Maria Ouspenskaya (not an actress with whom I am always happy), and Nigel Bruce (chillingly vicious in a rare, unsympathetic part), the character players have mostly only one or two scenes. Among the most memorable are William Edmunds' riotously funny caricature of the music school principal, Laura Hope Crews' true- blue dowager and Jane Darwell's restful Aunt Phoebe. Most of the others also have strong parts and lusty lines which provide constant entertainment."The Rains Came" is so lavishly pleasurable that even without its spectacular effects it would be well worth any movie-lover's money. But some of these effects are absolutely mind-boggling. True, the expert will detect a few obvious super-impositions, but the miniature work is most convincing and the sequence in which the walls collapse on Nigel Bruce and his servant (who is reported to have been actually injured in this shot) is overwhelming.Arthur Miller's cinematography as always makes the film most attractive to view. The players look magnetic and the sets positively dazzle. There are even a couple of inventive effects that masterfully enhance mood and atmosphere like the flashes of lightning outlining trellis-work on a wind-blown curtain. The film editing is as smooth as a well-worn rupee, the music inspired, the sets and costumes . . .All in all, "The Rains Came" has been so lovingly produced and directed with such crisp authority as to disguise most — if not all — the script's shortcomings. Rabid Bromfield readers will be disappointed but the general movie fan will rightly hail the picture as one of the most elegant entertainments of the year.OTHER VIEWS: A stunning achievement. Right from the opening credits (which are ingeniously washed away), we have a film so cunningly and immaculately produced, so dynamically played and persuasively directed as to instantly rivet our attention. Purists may cavil at the violence done to Bromfield's novel but few will disagree that the 1939 film is infinitely superior in every aspect of writing, acting, photography and production to the ploddingly garish 1955 remake. You can't replace players like Power, Loy, Brent and Bruce even with the likes of Richard Burton, Lana Turner, Fred MacMurray and Michael Rennie. And as for Joan Caulfield substituting for Brenda Joyce and the incredibly third- rate line-up of 1955 character players, the less said the better. — G.A.

***SPOILERS*** It was the amazing special effects, the first to win the Academy Award, that made "The Rains Came" worth watching far more then the schmaltzy and unconvincing romance in it that just about put the audience asleep trying to watch and absorb it. That between the straight as a arrow Major Rama Safti played by Tyrone Powers wearing a turban most of his time on the screen and an old flame of his the unhappily married Lady Edwina Esketh, Myrna Loy, who's bore of a husband Lord Albert,Nigel Bruce, is more interested in playing the horses then spending any time with her.For the first 20 or so minutes were tortured with the problems of the rich and well connected in 1938 British controlled India until the rains come and things start to get really wet and soggy for the entire cast. It's later when an earthquake hits the city of Ranchipur that what seems like the whole world is about to come to an end with the dam breaking and the water gushing out engulfing the entire city. With cholera breaking out it's only a matter of time when the entire population is to become extinct unless Major Rama, who's trained in medicine, can save the day as well as the people infected by it. With his now reunited girlfriend Lady Edina, who's husband Lord Albert was killed in building collapse, by his side first a scrub lady in the make shift hospital and then his assistant how could things go wrong! That's until Lady Edwina takes a drink of water from a glass that's been contaminated with Cholera and it's curtains for her.****SPOILERS**** With Major Rama doing everything possible to save his love Lady Edwina's life all he can do is just watch her go into a coma and slowly and peacefully expire along with all the other patients in the hospital that he's in charge of. With that out of his way in Major Dr. Rama planning to leave India with Lady Edwina for parts unknown like the Florida Everglades and the Grand Caynon all he can do now is take control of the battered and almost ghost town of Ranchipur and try to bring it back to life. Which the chain-smoking and soon to die, due to her excessive smoking habit, Maharani, Maria Ouspenskaya, appointed him mayor of so It would be his problem not hers!

The remake done years later with Lana Turner and Richard Burton was far better than this 1939 film.Myrna Loy actually needed some life breathed into her as well as the production. Tyrone Power is ridiculous as the Indian doctor who found love with her, and Nigel Bruce was a complete joke as Loy's husband in this adventure.Maria Ouspenskaya has some scene stealing scenes in the film. As ugly as ever, with that veil over her head, Maria shows courage, fortitude and resiliency when her husband, the leader dies, and is resolute in taking over his duties in an area ravaged by torrential downpours and an earthquake.

In the same high-watermark year that saw the burning of Atlanta in "Gone With the Wind" and Dorothy's house spinning perilously in a tornado in "The Wizard of Oz", this little-seen 1939 romantic melodrama won the first Oscar ever awarded to a film for Best Special Effects. Seventy years later, the earthquake-to-flood sequence still holds up impressively, even in the age of CGI programming with a surprisingly seamless combination of models, mattes and huge dump tanks. The artistry of Fox effects whiz Fred Sersen's work is worth slogging through the first fifty minutes of archaic set-up. Directed by MGM veteran Clarence Brown ("The Yearling"), the story would appear to have the makings of a romantic triangle given the three leads, but it actually consists of two contrasting love stories.Set in colonial India at its most exotic (although filmed entirely on the studio back lot), one thread centers on Tom Ransome, an aging, alcoholic British playboy pursued by Fern Simon, the love-struck daughter of local missionaries. The other is the forbidden romance that develops between Lady Edwina Esketh, the adulterous British wife of a pompous horse breeder and Major Rama Safti, a Hindu doctor devoted to his homeland. The calamitous disaster obviously veers all four off course as they find themselves re-evaluating their feelings for one another until fate steps in and decides for them. The second love story is obviously a metaphor for the diminishing hold Britain had on India in the years prior to Mahatma Gandhi's rise as the leader of the burgeoning republic. However, the May-December romance between Ransome and Fern initially follows a "Lolita"-esque course that offsets the balance of the film. Course correction comes with the unusually well-cast principals.Usually playing warm-hearted wives both scrappy ("The Thin Man") and noble ("The Best Years of Our Lives"), Myrna Loy surprises with a sexy, assured performance as Lady Edwina. She cuts a diaphanous figure as a voracious temptress and transitions convincingly to a woman desperate for moral redemption. It's a shame Loy had so few opportunities to show this uncensored side of her talent. Ridiculously handsome, Tyrone Power doesn't look remotely Indian even with a turban and constant tan. During the matinée idol phase of his career, he lacked depth and nuance, for example, take note of his embarrassing bad breakdown scene late in the film. However, he is obviously here for eye candy, and Loy's lustful glances are well justified in this regard.Perhaps because he is not playing opposite the vivid fieriness of constant co-star Bette Davis ("Dark Victory"), the usually bland George Brent is terrifically engaging as Ransome. I have to admit his witty banter with Loy held my interest far more than the concealed passion between her and Power. For better or worse, Brenda Joyce brings a strangely off-kilter dimension to Fran. Several great recognizable character actors fill the supporting parts, a few playing purely Hollywood versions of exotics - Jane Darwell, Henry Travers, H.B. Warner, Marjorie Rambeau, Joseph Schildkraut – though none makes a more vivid impression than Maria Ouspenskaya ("Dodsworth", "Love Affair") as the worldly wise Maharani with her dangling cigarette holder. The print transfer on the 2005 Fox Studios Classic DVD is impressively pristine. There is a chatty commentary track from film aficionados Anthony Slide and Robert S. Birchard, a gallery of stills, and the original theatrical trailer.