Rotten
Robert Standish's novel about life among the pekoe-planters rates a sprawling script and direction that lacks attention-holding pace from William Dieterle.
Variety Staff, Variety
Elephant Walk
One man claimed the land. Two men claimed the woman who lived there.
1954 · 1h 43m · APPROVED
Adventure, Drama, Romance
Directed by
William Dieterle
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Elephant Walk
Overview
Colonial tea planter John Wiley, visiting England at the end of World War II, weds lovely English rose Ruth and takes her home to Elephant Walk, Ceylon, where the local elephants have a grudge against the plantation. Ruth's delight with the tropical wealth and luxury of her new home is tempered by isolation as the only white woman in the district; her husband's occasional imperious arrogance; a mutual physical attraction with plantation manager Dick Carver; and the hovering, ominous menace of the hostile elephants.
Director and cast
- William Dieterle Director
- Elizabeth Taylor as Ruth Wiley
- Peter Finch as John Wiley
- Dana Andrews as Dick Carver
- Abraham Sofaer as Appuhamy
- Abner Biberman as Dr. Pereira
- Noel Drayton as Planter Atkinson
- Rosalind Ivan as Mrs. Lakin
- Barry Bernard as Planter Strawson
- Philip Tonge as Planter John Ralph
- Edward Ashley as Planter Gordon Gregory
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
60%
Tomatometer
Rotten
Unfortunately, the script that John Lee Mahin prepared from the Robert Standish book is lengthy and hackneyed in the build-up, and William Dieterle's direction does not provide anything more than gaudy panoramas of a tropical palace to fascinate the eye.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Fresh
I was 11 when I saw William Dieterle's 1954 adaptation of the Robert Standish novel Elephant Walk... and I loved it, though I don't know what I'd think today.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Fresh
Elephant Walk, though hardly a work of art, is an astonishingly neat feat of manufacture.
TIME Magazine
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