That was an excellent one.

I'll tell you why so serious

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

1939's "The Rains Came". Turner plays the predatory Lady Esketh, Burton the saintly Dr. Safti, Michael Rennie is Lord Esketh, while Fred MacMurray seems to have wandered away from the set of "My Three Sons" years before it began. He's not convincing as an alcoholic, and seems entirely too nice for this bunch of people.While I was waiting for/watching the Oscar nominated Special Effects sequence(s), I noticed that- Turner gives one of her better late performances; Eugenie Leontovich's Maharani combines a Russian and British accent and sounds remarkably weird; when a character is told not to do something, they go ahead and ignore the advice (applies to five characters). Burton is very brown when his character is introduced; when the rains start, his makeup starts to come off, and after he's been submerged in a flooding river, he's almost as white as Lana Turner. In the films' last twenty minutes, the brown makeup doesn't reappear. Instead Burton just wears more mascara than Turner. Things were already falling apart a bit at Fox and mogul Darryl F. Zanuck hadn't even left for Europe yet.The earthquake/flood/fire sequence is worth waiting for in spite of all of this. The Special Effects by Ray Kellogg were worth the Oscar nomination. To have seen the sequence in Cinerama must have been an experience.

This 1955 20th Century-Fox remake of their 1939 melodrama "The Rains Came" is possibly even more corny and ridiculous. While touring India, the unhappily-married wife of an English Lord falls in love with a Hindu physician; after the city of Ranchipur is nearly destroyed by an earthquake and flood, the woman falls ill, forcing the doctor to make a choice between saving the lives of his people or rushing to his lover's bedside. Film garnered an Academy Award nomination for its special effects (which are ultimately disappointing, with sped-up action causing the running natives to look like they've been dropped in from a silent movie), yet the screenplay is the cataclysm, with a hopelessly soapy story more wet than the rising waters. Lana Turner does her usual thing (she relies on the searching-eyed hysteria she normally falls back on), but Fred MacMurray is rather amusing as a hard-drinking ex-paramour. As the Hindu doctor, Richard Burton tries to hide his casting embarrassment underneath his turban, but perhaps it was on too tight--his pain is evident. *1/2 from ****

If you think watching LANA TURNER's attraction to the first man in a turban she's ever seen (RICHARD BURTON) is slightly humorous, wait till you see and hear FRED MacMURRAY and JOAN CAULFIELD reciting some dreary, sappy dialogue as the second lead love interests in another re-working of Luis Bromfield's tale about passion among some folk in India.It's a tale that doesn't get any better in this more lavish remake of "The Rains Came". The story is the kind that you follow only to wish impatiently that the floods will arrive to make your patience with the acting, direction and script worthwhile.Lana, of course, is a dream in Technicolored outfits, as a spoiled rich woman who dislikes her husband (MICHAEL RENNIE) because she suspects he only married her for her wealth. She therefore feels compelled to cheat on him with the first handsome man she spots after their arrival in India. It's typical Lana material and she does it so convincingly that you almost forgive her for some of the things she says and does.The climax is well staged and worth a view, especially as seen on the wide screen in all of its CinemaScope glory. But getting there is a tiresome thing indeed.

This glamorous remake of the '30s film "And The Rains Came", casts Lana Turner, Richard Burton, and Fred McMurray. Turner is a woman who travels with her husband to India to purchase some horses. While there, the unsatisfied Lana embarks on an affair with Hindu doctor Burton, breaking taboos and causing a ruckus among the elite set. All the drama is compounded by a series of earthquakes and one big flood that threatens the lives of everyone. It's hard to tell what's more beautiful to look at - the Indian scenery(really filmed in Pakistan) or the always elegant Lana. Storyline-wise there's not a lot of substance, but it's truly a visual feast regardless.