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''The Planter's Wife '' is a 1952 British
war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
directed by
Ken Annakin Kenneth Cooper Annakin, OBE (10 August 1914 – 22 April 2009) was an English film director. His career spanned half a century, beginning in the early 1940s and ending in 1992, and in the 1960s he was noticed by critics with large-scale advent ...
, and starring
Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert (koʊlˈbɛər/ kohl-BAIR, born Émilie "Lily" Claudette Chauchoin (ʃoʃwɛ̃/ show-shwan); September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway theater, Broadway productions dur ...
, Jack Hawkins and Anthony Steel. It is set against the backdrop of the
Malayan Emergency The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War, was a guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war fought in Federation of Malaya, Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Arm ...
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. The film was retitled ''Outpost in Malaya'' in the United States.


Plot

During the
Malayan Emergency The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War, was a guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war fought in Federation of Malaya, Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Arm ...
, communist terrorists attack an isolated rubber plantation, killing the manager. This concerns neighbouring planter Jim Frazer, who is struggling to produce rubber under constant attacks. Jim is having domestic difficulties with his American wife Liz, who is planning to take their son Mike to
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
and not return. British Inspector Hugh Dobson urges Liz to come clean with Jim. Jim gives a lift to Wan Li, a Chinese man, the uncle of a little servant girl injured in the attack on Jim's neighbour. After Wan Li goes to the police, the communists murder him. Mike is almost bitten by a cobra but a
mongoose A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family has two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to southern Europe, A ...
kills the snake. A bandit attacks Liz and corners her, but she shoots him with a pistol. Jim takes her home. When she awakes the plantation is under attack. Jim fights off the communists with the help of his friend Nair. Liz decides to stay in Malaya.


Cast


Production


Development

The movie was based on a 1951 novel ''Planter's Wife'' by Sidney Charles George. It was originally known as ''White Blood''. This was the name given to liquid rubber as it is tapped from trees. However the title was criticised by the
Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colo ...
and overseas distributors because it could be interpreted as referring to racial discrimination, so it was changed to ''The Planter's Wife''. The film was co-financed by the National Film Finance Corporation and
The Rank Organisation The Rank Organisation (founded as the J. Arthur Rank Organisation) is a British entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1937 by industrialist J. Arthur Rank. It quickly became the largest and most vertical integration, ve ...
. The producer, John Stafford, was freelance. A script was written by Guy Elmes, who had served in the Far East with Lord Mountbatten. Rank's head of production, Earl St. John gave the script to Ken Annakin who agreed to direct. In February 1952 Earl St John of Rank announced the company (in conjunction with the National Film Fince Corporation) would make a slate of 12 movies at a cost of £1,500,000, including '' Fanfare for Fig Leaves'' with Kay Kendall, '' Tonight at 8:30'', and ''The Planter's Wife''.


Casting

To encourage a receptive American audience, Earl St. John sent Annakin to Hollywood in November 1951 to select an American actress for the female lead. Annakin interviewed
Norma Shearer Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, ...
,
Loretta Young Loretta Young (born Gretchen Michaela Young; January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1989. She received numerous honors including an Academy Awards ...
,
Joan Crawford Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, 190? was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway theatre, Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion-picture cont ...
,
Olivia de Havilland Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916July 26, 2020) was a British and American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her tim ...
and
Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert (koʊlˈbɛər/ kohl-BAIR, born Émilie "Lily" Claudette Chauchoin (ʃoʃwɛ̃/ show-shwan); September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway theater, Broadway productions dur ...
. Shearer was retired, de Havilland and Young were too busy with other commitments and Crawford thought the role would not suit her. However Colbert accepted. She was paid £20,000 to play the lead. Colbert's casting meant United Artists agreed to distribute the film in the US. The role of Jim Fraser was originally meant to be played by
Michael Redgrave Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English actor and filmmaker. Beginning his career in theatre, he first appeared in the West End in 1937. He made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's ''The Lady Vanishes'' ...
but in December 1951 Jack Hawkins was cast instead. In January 1952 Antony Steel joined the cast; it was one of several films where he played in support of an older British actor. Indian dancer Ram Gopal was given his first dramatic role as the overseer. Child actor
Peter Asher Peter Asher (born 22 June 1944) is an English guitarist, singer, manager and record producer. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the pop music vocal duo Peter and Gordon before going on to a successful career as a manager and re ...
– who later went on to a successful career as musician, singer (as half of the 1960s' " Peter & Gordon" duo) and record producer – plays the couple's son, Mike. Among the Burmese, Indian and Malay extras was Khin Maung, a noted Burmese painter. Future director
Don Sharp Donald Herman Sharp (19 April 192114 December 2011) was an Australian film director. His best known films were made for Hammer Film Productions, Hammer in the 1960s, and included ''Kiss of the Vampire (film), Kiss of the Vampire'' (1963) and ' ...
has a small role.


Shooting

Colbert left for Britain in February 1951 and stayed there three months. Director
Ken Annakin Kenneth Cooper Annakin, OBE (10 August 1914 – 22 April 2009) was an English film director. His career spanned half a century, beginning in the early 1940s and ending in 1992, and in the 1960s he was noticed by critics with large-scale advent ...
and a team gathered anecdotes from planters, policemen and soldiers in Malaya and shot second unit sequences there as well as
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
and
Malacca Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...
but for safety reasons during the ongoing Emergency, much of the filming was done in
Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
, on the advice of Rank's Asian representative, John Dalton. Filming in Ceylon took eight weeks. The majority of the film was shot in London at
Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to t ...
. Hawkins wrote in his memoirs, "we did not leave Pinewood Studios for one single day. All the outside work was done with that rather cheating technique of back projection, by which the action is played out against a screen showing moving pictures of locations... What made it all the more absurd was the fact that we were filming in the middle of winter, and dressed only in bush shirt and shorts I was permanently frozen." Colbert impressed Annakin with her detailed technical knowledge of lighting and camera work and confided in Annakin that she had never been called upon to do real action scenes in Hollywood and quickly became adept in small arms use. Annakin says Colbert had an affair with actor Hubert Gregg while making the movie. To shoot the cobra vs mongoose fight, the room set was built in a Ceylon zoo. When several of the local mongooses ran away from the cobra, the zookeeper said "Ï'm afraid our Singhalese mongooses are not used to fighting; I'll have to get you some North-Indian variety". Imported from
Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...
, the Indian mongoose engaged in a true fight to the finish with the cobra.


Reception


Box office

The film was the sixth most popular movie of the year at the British box office in 1952, after '' The Greatest Show on Earth'', '' Where No Vultures Fly'', '' Son of Paleface'', ''
Ivanhoe ''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' ( ) by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in December 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. It marked a shift away from Scott's prior practice of setting stories in Scotland and in the more ...
'' and '' Mandy''. It was followed by '' The Quiet Man'', ''
The World in His Arms ''The World in His Arms'' is a 1952 American seafaring adventure film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Gregory Peck, Ann Blyth and Anthony Quinn, with John McIntire, Carl Esmond, Andrea King, Eugenie Leontovich, Hans Conried, and Sig Ru ...
'', ''
Angels One Five ''Angels One Five'' is a 1952 British war film directed by George More O'Ferrall and starring Jack Hawkins, Michael Denison, Dulcie Gray, John Gregson, Cyril Raymond and Veronica Hurst. Based on the book ''What Are Your Angels Now?'' by Pelham G ...
'' (also with Hawkins), ''
Reluctant Heroes ''Reluctant Heroes'' is a 1952 British comedy film directed by Jack Raymond and starring Ronald Shiner, Derek Farr and Christine Norden. It is based on the popular farce of the same title by Colin Morris. The play, which had its West En ...
'', '' The African Queen'' and '' The Sound Barrier''. Despite Colbert's presence, the film only took £32,000 in the United States. (''Variety'' reported this at $90,000.) However it was a success in other international markets.


Critical

The critic from the ''
Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in Chicago founded by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists. Publication began in 1924. It generally reflected the prevailing views of members of the Communist Party USA (CPU ...
'' called it "the most viciously dishonest war propaganda picture yet made in Britain." The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' said "the atmosphere is more plausible than the melodrama." ''Variety'' said "The jungle campaign against local terrorists is depicted against a commonplace domestic drama" and said "later action sequences compensate for the lame opening."


Legacy

Ken Annakin later said he was "quite proud" of the film calling it "a good action picture."Annakin p 65 The success of the movie led to Rank's head of production Earl St John to commission another colonial war film, about Britain's struggle against the Mau Mau, ''
Simba Simba is a fictional character in Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney's ''The Lion King (franchise), The Lion King ''franchise. First appearing as a cub in ''The Lion King'' (1994), the character flees his homeland when his father, Mufasa, is ...
''.


References


Citation

*


External links

* *
Review of film
at
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

The Planter's Wife
at Letterbox DVD
Review of film
at ''Variety''
''The Planter's Wife''
at BFI {{DEFAULTSORT:Planter's Wife (1952 film), The 1952 films 1950s war drama films British war drama films British black-and-white films Films shot at Pinewood Studios Films shot in Sri Lanka Films set in Malaysia Films directed by Ken Annakin British drama films 1952 drama films Films about the Malayan Emergency 1950s English-language films 1950s British films English-language war drama films