IMDb RATING
6.4/10
2.1K
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Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 2 nominations total
Ronald Adam
- General Ackerby
- (uncredited)
Anthony Bushell
- Lanson
- (uncredited)
Eric Corrie
- Man-at-Arms
- (uncredited)
George Cukor
- Man on Train
- (uncredited)
Roger Delgado
- Train Driver
- (uncredited)
Dharma Emmanuel
- Sentry
- (uncredited)
Raymond Francis
- Captain Cumberly
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMGM originally planned to film Bhowani Junction on location in India. That is, until the Indian government started making demands seeking script approval and a big tax payment of 12% of the film's worldwide net profit. MGM changed their plans and decided to film instead in Pakistan - whose government was more accommodating and less demanding of the studio. And this made the picture the first Hollywood film produced in that country.
- GoofsWhen Savage is first in Taylor's office giving him orders about the trains, he says, "One of you will have to be in close touch with me at all times so that my trolley patrols do not run into unscheduled trains." He says the word "unscheduled" using the American "sk" pronunciation, but as an Englishman he would have pronounced it using the British "sh" sound.
- Quotes
Col. Rodney Savage: The only people who face reality are too dumb to duck when they see it coming.
- ConnectionsEdited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: Une histoire seule (1989)
Featured review
An Anglo-Indian woman (Ava Gardner) is caught between India and England
During the chaotic final days of British rule in northwest India in 1947, the beautiful daughter (Gardner) of an English train engineer and an Indian mother struggles to find her identity while pursued by three men: a rail-traffic superintendent (Bill Travers), his Sikh subordinate (Francis Matthews) and a British colonel (Stewart Granger). Meanwhile Indian supporters of Mahatma Gandhi campaign for independence while Communists, led by a revolutionary called Davay (Peter Illing), fuel unrest.
"Bhowani Junction" (1956) is an exotic drama with adventure elements similar to the future "A Passage to India" (1985), although not as good as that one. It features most of the elements you'd think of when India comes to mind - never-ending throngs of people in (usually) white garb, trains, street commotion, etc.
Ava is beautiful, Granger makes for a stalwart male protagonist, the locations are authentic and the historical setting is interesting. But I rolled my eyes at the subplot regarding a certain person feeling guilty about something, which didn't make sense since what that person did was in self-defense and the perpetrator was an ignoble scumbag.
The movie runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Lahore, Pakistan, which is just across the border from northwestern India; the train wreck sequence was done 35 miles outside London to the southwest; another sequence was shot at Tram Tunnel, Kingsway, London, while studio stuff was done at the MGM British Studios just north of the city.
GRADE: B-/C+
"Bhowani Junction" (1956) is an exotic drama with adventure elements similar to the future "A Passage to India" (1985), although not as good as that one. It features most of the elements you'd think of when India comes to mind - never-ending throngs of people in (usually) white garb, trains, street commotion, etc.
Ava is beautiful, Granger makes for a stalwart male protagonist, the locations are authentic and the historical setting is interesting. But I rolled my eyes at the subplot regarding a certain person feeling guilty about something, which didn't make sense since what that person did was in self-defense and the perpetrator was an ignoble scumbag.
The movie runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Lahore, Pakistan, which is just across the border from northwestern India; the train wreck sequence was done 35 miles outside London to the southwest; another sequence was shot at Tram Tunnel, Kingsway, London, while studio stuff was done at the MGM British Studios just north of the city.
GRADE: B-/C+
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $3,637,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 50 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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