Bhowani Junction 1956 DVD - Ava Gardner / Stewart Granger

India, 1947: In the final days of British rule, Victoria Jones, the beautiful daughter of an Indian mother and an English train engineer, is serving in the British Army. She returns on leave after four years to her childhood home in the fictional town of Bhowani, north-western India, where supporters of Mahatma Gandhi are campaigning for Indian independence while communists, led by a revolutionary known as Davay, foment riot and sabotage.

She becomes reacquainted with a childhood sweetheart also of Anglo-Indian heritage, rail traffic superintendent Patrick Taylor, and also with Colonel Rodney Savage, a British army officer whose Indian battalion has been posted to Bhowani to maintain law and order as British rule ends. The protesters disrupt the rail service and Savage places Victoria on duty during the crisis. He disperses the protesters violently and Victoria does not approve of his methods. She begins seriously contemplating her identity and speculates that she should marry a man from India, although clearly Taylor is still in love with her and Savage has become infatuated with her.

Walking home alone one night, Victoria is attacked and nearly raped by Captain McDaniel, one of Savage's men, but in self-defence she strikes him on the head with a steel bar and kills him. Finding her, a Sikh co-worker of Taylor's, Ranjit Kasel, takes her to his home and offers her sanctuary, introducing her to his mother, the Sadani, and to a guest in their home, Ghan Shyam, who offers to hide McDaniel's body after the Sadani worries that her son Ranjit will be accused of murdering the officer.

Davay's raids on the military infrastructure continue. He blows up a train, causing numerous deaths and injuries. Victoria, influenced by her love for India, decides to marry Ranjit, but during the ceremony, fearing the complete loss of her dual race identity, suddenly flees. When an army sentry is found murdered because he saw McDaniel and Victoria together just before she killed the officer, Victoria realizes that the man in Ranjit's home, Ghan Shyam, is actually Davay and that the Sadani, once a notorious Indian resistance leader, has been harboring him.

Davay kidnaps Victoria, using her to escape the city aboard her father's train. Savage and Taylor intercept the train before it reaches a tunnel, rescuing Victoria but finding Davay has gone into the tunnel with dynamite. Taylor recklessly advances into the tunnel to defuse the dynamite but is shot by Davay, who in turn is immediately shot and killed by Savage. Savage, cradling Taylor as he dies, watches the safe passage of the train. On board is Gandhi, whom Davay intended to assassinate, thereby inciting further hostilities and riots.

Savage's duty in India ends and he is summoned back to England, but his love for Victoria has become overwhelming. When she refuses to marry him and live in England, he proposes to marry but remain in India, and she accepts. Savage's superior offers to expedite his early release from military service in acknowledgement for his accomplishments.

Cast:

Ava Gardner as Victoria Jones
Stewart Granger as Colonel Rodney Savage
Bill Travers as Patrick Taylor
Abraham Sofaer as Surabhai
Francis Matthews as Ranjit Kasel
Marne Maitland as Govindaswami
Peter Illing as Ghan Shyam aka Davay
Edward Chapman as Thomas Jones
Freda Jackson as the Sadani
Lionel Jeffries as Captain Graham McDaniel
Alan Tilvern as Ted Dunphy
Yousaf D Hamdani as Assistant Director
Neelo as a 15-year-old girl
Zohra Mahmood, special appearance

Runtime: 110 Minutes