East of Elephant Rock

Old Hollywood traditions hang heavy and ridiculous over this depressingly redundant sample of British independent cinema. It's a colonial romantic tragedy, set somewhere in South East Asia during 1948. In place of people like Gable, Harlow or Bette Davis, a cast of British stalwarts gamely beat their breasts over sexual and racial problems brought to the boil by the philandering of Embassy secretary Hurt, whose mistresses include a native girl and the far from native wife of a plantation owner. Boyd's direction revives antique clichés like newspaper headlines spinning into close-up to pull the plot forward, but nothing seems likely to pull the audience out of its slumbers. Peter Skellern's score provides a parallel musical pastiche, and the photography recalls ads for Bacardi and Coke.