East of Elephant Rock

Last updated

East of Elephant Rock is a 1977 British independent drama film directed by Don Boyd and starring John Hurt, Jeremy Kemp and Judi Bowker. [1] It was Boyd's second feature film following Intimate Reflections (1975). [2] [3] Like William Somerset Maugham's 1927 play The Letter and two subsequent film adaptations, its narrative content depended on the 1911 Ethel Proudlock murder in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which became a cause célèbre scandalising British colonial society and which had been featured in a Sunday Observer article as recently as the year before. [4] [5] Boyd, drawing in part on his own experience of growing up in an increasingly dysfunctional family in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion, wanted to tell a story about the decline of the Empire and the surrender of responsibility. [6] [7] In the event his project was for the most part ridiculed but the film did draw warm support from the film director Bryan Forbes.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Plot

The film is set in Ceylon in 1948. The governor is assassinated, but the colonists continue to ignore the natives' discontent with British occupation. Plantation owner Robert Proudfoot exploits his native workers, while his spoiled wife Eve becomes progressively distant from her husband. Eventually Eve has an affair with Embassy secretary Nash but soon discovers that Nash already has a mistress: a native woman. In a fit of rage, Eve murders Nash. Robert comes to Eve's rescue and tries to get her lighter sentencing for the murder.

Cast

Production

The film is treated at length in Alexander Walker's book National Heroes: British Cinema in the 70's and 80's. [7] The script was written by Richard Boyle, with input from fellow journalist, James Atherton. Filming took place during a four-week period in April and May 1976, on location in Sri Lanka, with a budget of just £100,000. [8] Post production was undertaken in London and the film's score was composed by Peter Skellern.

Reception

The film was selected for the 1976 London Film Festival. The programme notes pointed out:

All through the production there was a conscious stylistic discipline of creating a film to echo the moods and mannerisms of the heyday of big studios in the 1940s, and yet encompass a modern approach. This is not to say that it is not a genre movie; indeed much of its charm is derived from the fact that it is not easily categorized with other films being made today. [8]

It took a year for Boyd to find a distributor and then secure a release, as it was an independent production - without any studio backing. Its first general screening was in January 1978, at the brand-new four-screen Classic 1-2-3-4 on Oxford Street in London. [8]

The film received an extraordinarily hostile UK press and there were suggestions that Boyd had 'ripped-off' William Wyler's classic film noir The Letter . Boyd responded, not implausibly, that he simply hadn't seen Wyler's film but he certainly knew of the Proudlock affair.

Philip French, writing in The Times , commented: [9]

The writer-director Don Boyd embellished his tale with some political background .. with not the remotest understanding of colonial politics in the post world-war. Elephant Rock is badly lit, badly edited and badly acted. Typically in the course of a love scene on a railway platform, the station clock moves back half an hour.

while Time Out characterised it as a "depressingly redundant sample of British independent cinema". [10]

Alexander Walker's view praised the film's often glorious mise en scène on a limited budget and especially valorises Jeremy Kemp's performance but agrees the story was ineptly handled. [7]

Bryan Forbes came to the film's defence in a letter to The Times [11]

At a time when the British film industry desperately needs sympathetic encouragement, it is sad that such a worthy endeavour by a young director ... should be greeted with such a distorted - and to those who know - unfair reception

later joking that his letter had cost him good reviews for his own films ever since. [7] The Evening Standard stated

Whatever Don Boyd can’t do, he can involve you in a real sense of people and space; the small-timers of backwoods administration living it up in feudal style, clustering ever more tightly together at the cocktail parties for security. The present scenic glories and past mementoes of Empire in Ceylon give the film a perspiring sense of social authenticity. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judi Dench</span> English actress

Dame Judith Olivia Dench is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actors, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage. Dench has garnered various accolades throughout a career that spanned seven decades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, six British Academy Film Awards, and seven Olivier Awards.

<i>The Elephant Man</i> (film) 1980 film directed by David Lynch

The Elephant Man is a 1980 biographical drama film loosely based on the life of Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man who lived in London in the late 19th century. The film was directed by David Lynch, produced by Mel Brooks and Jonathan Sanger, and stars John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Michael Elphick, Hannah Gordon, and Freddie Jones. The Elephant Man is generally regarded as one of Lynch's more accessible and mainstream works, alongside The Straight Story (1999).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mau Mau rebellion</span> Insurgency in Kenya from 1952 to 1960

The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. Dominated by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai who fought against the European colonists in Kenya, the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment.

<i>The Letter</i> (1940 film) 1940 American crime drama film William Wyler

The Letter is a 1940 American crime film noir melodrama directed by William Wyler, and starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson. The screenplay by Howard E. Koch is based on the 1927 play of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham derived from his own short story. The play was first filmed in 1929, by director Jean de Limur. The story was inspired by a real-life scandal involving the Eurasian wife of the headmaster of a school in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting dead a male friend in April 1911. She was pardoned by the local sultan after a public furor.

The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross Kemp</span> English actor, journalist (b. 1964)

Ross James Kemp is an English actor, author, and television presenter. He rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. He is also known for his other roles in Emmerdale as Graham Lodsworth and in Birds of a Feather as Detective Inspector Monk. Kemp has received international recognition as a reporter for presenting the BAFTA Award-winning documentary television series Ross Kemp on Gangs (2004–2009).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Boyd</span> Northern Irish actor (1931–1977)

William Millar, better known by his stage name Stephen Boyd, was an actor from Northern Ireland. He emerged as a leading man during the late 1950's with his role as the villainous Messala in Ben-Hur (1959), a role that earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. He received his second Golden Globe nomination for the musical Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962).

<i>Ben-Hur</i> (1959 film) 1959 American epic film directed by William Wyler

Ben-Hur is a 1959 American religious epic film directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston as the title character. A remake of the 1925 silent film with a similar title, it was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The cast also features Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell and Sam Jaffe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinéad Cusack</span> Irish stage, television and film actress

Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.

<i>And Soon the Darkness</i> (1970 film) 1970 British film by Robert Fuest

And Soon the Darkness is a 1970 British thriller film directed by Robert Fuest and starring Pamela Franklin, Michele Dotrice and Sandor Elès. The plot follows two British nurses on a cycling holiday in rural France; during their trip, one of them vanishes, and the other struggles to search for her in a rural community.

Judi Bowker is an English film and television actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Kemp</span> English actor (1935–2019)

Edmund Jeremy James Walker, known professionally as Jeremy Kemp, was an English actor. He was known for his significant roles in the miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, the film The Blue Max, and the TV series Z-Cars.

<i>Whistle Down the Wind</i> (film) 1961 British film by Bryan Forbes

Whistle Down the Wind is a 1961 British crime drama film directed by Bryan Forbes and starring Hayley Mills, Bernard Lee and Alan Bates. It was adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from the 1958 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell.

<i>A Christmas Carol</i> (2000 film) 2000 television movie directed by Catherine Morshead

A Christmas Carol is a 2000 British crime fantasy television film, written by Peter Bowker, that first broadcast on ITV on 20 December 2000. The film is a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella of the same name, and stars Ross Kemp in the role of Eddie Scrooge, a cruel and unscrupulous loan shark who brings misery to the residents of a poor housing estate, before he is haunted by ghosts one Christmas Eve.

<i>The Planters Wife</i> (1952 film) 1952 British film

The Planter's Wife is a 1952 British war drama film directed by Ken Annakin, and starring Claudette Colbert, Jack Hawkins and Anthony Steel. It is set against the backdrop of the Malayan Emergency and focuses on a rubber planter and his neighbours who are fending off a campaign of sustained attacks by Communist insurgents while also struggling to save their marriage.

Donald William Robertson Boyd is a Scottish film director, producer, screenwriter and novelist. He was a Governor of the London Film School until 2016 and in 2017 was made an Honorary Professor in the College of Humanities at Exeter University.

<i>Eyewitness</i> (1970 film) 1970 British film by John Hough

Eyewitness is a 1970 British thriller film directed by John Hough and starring Mark Lester, Susan George and Lionel Jeffries. Its plot follows a young English boy who, while staying with his grandfather and adult sister in Malta, witnesses a political assassination, and is subsequently pursued by the killers—however, due to his habitual lying, those around him are hesitant to believe his claims. It is an adaptation of the novel by Mark Hebden, the pen name for John Harris, and bears similarity to Cornell Woolrich's novelette "The Boy Cried Murder", originally adapted for film as The Window.

The Ethel Proudlock case refers to a 1911 shooting by Proudlock, her trial for murder, and the cause célèbre scandalising British colonial society in Kuala Lumpur, Federated Malay States it created.

<i>The Woman in Black: Angel of Death</i> 2014 film by Tom Harper

The Woman in Black: Angel of Death is a 2014 supernatural horror film directed by Tom Harper and starring Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine, Helen McCrory, Adrian Rawlins, Leanne Best, and Ned Dennehy. The screenplay was written by Jon Croker from a story by Susan Hill. It is the sequel to the 2012 film The Woman in Black, and is produced by Hammer Film Productions and Entertainment One. During WWII, the London bombings force two schoolteachers to evacuate a group of children to the coastal village of Crythin Gifford. When the refugees take shelter at Eel Marsh House, one teacher, Eve Parkins, soon realizes they are not alone. Little does she know that what lives in the house is more sinister than what they were running from. The film had a premiere in Dubai on December 30, 2014.

<i>Six Minutes to Midnight</i> 2020 British war drama film

Six Minutes to Midnight is a 2020 British war drama film directed by Andy Goddard from a screenplay loosely based on a true story by Goddard, Celyn Jones and Eddie Izzard, starring Izzard, Judi Dench, Carla Juri, James D'Arcy and Jim Broadbent.

References

  1. ↑ "East of Elephant Rock". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
  2. ↑ "East of Elephant Rock". BFI database. Archived from the original on 17 January 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  3. ↑ "East of Elephant Rock". IMDb. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  4. ↑ Lawlor, Eric (March 2000). Murder on the Verandah: Love and Betrayal in British Malaysia. Flamingo. ISBN   0-00-655065-7.
  5. ↑ Chung Chee Min. "The Proudlock Saga". The Victoria Institution Web Page. Archived from the original on 31 March 2002. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  6. ↑ "Storyville:Donald and Luba - A Family Movie". BFI database. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Walker, Alexander (September 2005) [1985]. National Heroes: British Cinema in the 70's and 80's. Orion. pp. 147–150. ISBN   0-7528-5707-X.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Boyle, Richard (23 April 2017). "John Hurts Reel Life in Lanka". Sunday Times . Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  9. ↑ Philip French (13 January 1978). "Film review: East of Elephant Rock". The Times .
  10. ↑ "East of Elephant Rock". Time Out. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  11. ↑ Bryan Forbes (20 January 1978). "Letter: East of Elephant Rock". The Times .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.