''East of Elephant Rock'' is a 1977 British independent

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film directed by

Don Boyd Donald William Robertson Boyd (born 11 August 1948 in Nairn, Scotland) 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 Col ...

and starring

John Hurt Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 25 January 2017) was an English actor whose career spanned over five decades. Hurt was regarded as one of Britain's finest actors. Director David Lynch described him as "simply the greatest actor in t ...

Jeremy Kemp Edmund Jeremy James Walker (3 February 1935 – 19 July 2019), 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 ...

and

Judi Bowker Judi Bowker (born 6 April 1954) is an English film and television actress. Biography Bowker was born in Shawford, Hampshire, England, the daughter of Alfred J. Bowker and Ann Fairweather, who had married in 1947. The family moved to the Britis ...

. It was Boyd's second feature film following his little-noticed 1975 '' Intimate Reflections''. Like

William Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

's 1927 play '' The Letter'' and two subsequent film adaptations, its narrative content depended on the 1911 Ethel Proudlock murder in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, which became a ''cause célèbre'' scandalising British colonial society and which had been featured in a ''

Sunday Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' article as recently as the year before. Boyd, drawing in part on his own experience of growing up in an increasingly dysfunctional family in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

during the

Mau Mau rebellion 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'', ...

, wanted to tell a story about the decline of the Empire and the surrender of responsibility. In the event his project was for the most part ridiculed but the film did draw warm support from the film director

Bryan Forbes Bryan Forbes CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013 and ...

Plot

The film is set in South East Asia in 1948, in an unnamed British colony. 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 a lighter sentencing for the murder.

Cast

... Nash *

... Harry Rawlins *

... Eve Proudfoot * Christopher Cazenove ... Robert Proudfoot *

Anton Rodgers Anthony "Anton" Rodgers (10 January 1933 – 1 December 2007) was an English actor and occasional director. He performed on stage, in film, in television dramas and sitcoms. He starred in several sitcoms, including ''Fresh Fields'' (ITV, ...

... Mackintosh *

Tariq Yunus Tariq Yunus (16 October 1946 – 26 August 1994) was an Indian actor known for his role as chef Alaudin in television sitcom '' Tandoori Nights''. Biography As a young man (his brother being the politician Kunwar Khalid Yunus), Yunus gaine ...

... Inti * Vajira Cabraal ... Sharmani * Sam Poythress ... Governor General * Geoffrey Hale ... Commissioner * Upali Attanayaka ... Rawlin's Houseboy * J. B. L. Gunasekera ... Sharmani's Uncle

Production

The film is treated at length in Alexander Walker's book ''National Heroes: British Cinema in the 70's and 80's''. 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. Post production was undertaken in London and the film's score was composed by

Peter Skellern Peter Skellern (14 March 1947 – 17 February 2017) was an English singer-songwriter and pianist who rose to fame in the 1970s. He had two top twenty hits on the UK Singles Chart - " You're a Lady" (1972), which typifies his signature use of b ...

Reception

The film was selected for the 1976

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and sho ...

. The programme notes pointed out: 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. The film received an extraordinarily hostile UK press and there were suggestions that Boyd had 'ripped-off'

William Wyler William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for '' Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), ''The Best Years of ...

'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 ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', commented: while '' Time Out'' characterised it as a "depressingly redundant sample of British independent cinema". Alexander Walker's view was more nuanced. He praises the film's often glorious '' mise en scène'' on a limited budget and especially valorises

's performance but agrees the story was ineptly handled. Bryan Forbes came to the film's defence in a letter to ''The Times'' later joking that his letter had cost him good reviews for his own films ever since. The ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' stated

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:East Of Elephant Rock 1977 films 1970s historical films British historical films 1970s English-language films British independent films Films shot in Sri Lanka Films directed by Don Boyd Films set in the British Empire 1977 independent films 1970s British films

Plot

Cast

Production

Reception

See also

References