Julia, her fiancée Burton and his mother
Katie, all Americans, leave their home in Bombay to visit Julia’s
family in a small village in India. When no one meets them at
the bus stop, they walk to the family’s empty, dilapidated home in
the countryside. Julia sends Burton’s mother to town for food,
accompanied by an Indian servant she calls “Boy.”
While Katie is gone, Julia feels anger
and shame because of her unconventional family. Burton
comforts her and they are soon joined by Julia’s slovenly brother
Rault, who considers his sister to be nice but dull. Katie,
meanwhile, is frustrated in her attempts to communicate with the
local grocer until Julia’s father Putsi, a self-indulgent artist and
widower, assists her and secretly signals the grocer to include
cigars for him. Putsi accompanies Julia’s mother back to the
house, where he argues that his need for freedom supercedes mundane
matters such as the upkeep of the house. The conventional
Katie busies herself with cleaning and cooking while fending off
Julia’s lecherous father.
Later, Rault and Putsi reveal that the
small income Julia has been sending home from her job is being
supplemented by her younger sister, Jeanette, who is having an
affair with local industrialist Molac. Julia is offended that
Jeanette’s affair is supporting the family, and she admits to Burton
that she yearns for a cleanliness, order and discipline that her
family finds intolerable. Jeanette arrives for dinner and
becomes furious when she learns that Katie has unwittingly killed
their pet chicken for the meal. Putsi and Rault console her by
philosophizing about the inevitability of death, while Burton is
clearly smitten by the tempestuous younger sister.
That afternoon, Burton and Jeanette fall
in love but Burton vows to remain faithful to Julia.
Nevertheless, Burton seeks Jeanette out after dinner near a ruined
temple that she uses as her private retreat. They return to
the house together and inform Julia that Burton is breaking his
engagement with her to be with Jeanette. While Jeanette taunts
Julia to undermine her stoicism, Rault warns the lovers that the
gods hate happiness and will destroy their love. Burton and
Jeanette leave in the midst of a monsoon and struggle through wind
and rain to reach her retreat. Jeanette dons an elegant white
gown to impress her lover, but she then rejects Burton’s touch and
refutes his accusation that she is wearing a wedding dress.
In time, Jeanette admits that the
wedding gown was given to her by a former lover. Burton is
angry that she would wear it on their first night together, but
their ensuing argument is interrupted by the arrival of Rault, who
again suggests that their relationship will never succeed.
After Rault cites a Roman legend about the wife of a condemned man
who cuts herself with the executioner’s sword to allay her husband’s
fears, Jeanette proclaims that her love for Burton is so strong that
she would forego having children so that she could devote herself to
him. Jeanette then cuts her wrist to prove her love, but her
passionate act is interrupted by the arrival of Boy, who informs
them that Julia has attempted to kill herself. After a brief
hesitation, Burton and Rault leave to help Julia. Molac then
comes in out of the rain and brutally forces a kiss on Jeanette.
Three days later, Julia has recovered
and her father reflects that he is relieved the group will be
leaving. After Jeanette unhappily marries Molac in a local
ceremony, she finds Burton and tells him that she wed Molac because
she knew that Burton was destined to marry Julia. When Burton
voices surprise that she abandoned him so readily, she insists that
she saw the truth the moment he left her to tend to Julia. As
Burton, Julia and Katie drive off in a car, Jeanette, still wearing
her wedding dress, walks barefoot up the steps of the great temple
of Gomateswara. As Rault and their father watch her, Rault
comments that she will never return. Putsi calls out to his
daughter in fear, however Rault morosely attests that she is “done
for.”
Notes
Opening credits noted that Monsoon was "Filmed in
its entirety in the actual locale of the story, India, and at
Minerva Movietone Studios, Bombay." Opening cast credits
differ in order from the end credits.
Information in the file on the film in
the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library reveals the following
about the production: A script titled Wild Girl was first
submitted to the MPAA by Allied Artists Productions in 1948.
The correspondence indicates that it was to be produced by French
writer/producer/director Jean Renoir. Joseph I. Breen
rejected the script as being in violation of the Production Code due
to its “glorification of an immoral woman" as well as to the
script’s inherent sexuality and irreligious tone. By 1950 the
script had been rewritten and the production company was listed as
The Film Group Inc. The extent of Renoir’s participation in
the final project has not been determined.
Despite major script revisions through
1951, by which time the film had been retitled Monsoon, the
MPAA continued to protest the “glorified ‘love suicide’ of your two
principal leads” and the film’s general immorality. Further
correspondence in September 1952 indicates that, in addition to
other minor changes, Breen was withholding certification pending
reviewing the new footage, and suggested that two shots of the
“naked” statue of Gomateswara should also be cut.
The film’s press book contains the
following written conclusion to the film: "Jeanette, instead of
going back to her wedding guests, climbs the thousand stone steps to
the feet of Gomateswara and leaps to her death. The car in
which Burton, Julia and Katie are riding skids on the muddy road and
smashes against a stone wall, Burton being killed instantly, the
lovers thus being united in death as they could not be in life."
Although “Jeanette’s” suicide was implied, these scenes were not
included in the viewed print. A February 25, 1953, HR
review noted the following: "Ultimately Ursula ends the triangle by
diving from 1,000 feet before the huge statue of an Indian god.”
The statue of Gomateswara is located in Sravanabelagola, India, and
has five hundred steps leading to the temple. Monsoon
marked the American film debut of German-born actress
Ursula Thiess.
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