A footnote to some of the interesting contributions David Desser,

          Jeremy Butler, and others have made to  the thread on interracial

          romance ....

          One variation on the idea of  a romance between a white woman and

          a  man  "of color", earlier than  most mentioned, was depicted in

          the  1953 colonial adventure, KING  OF  THE KHYBER RIFLES. Tyrone

          Power  played  a half-caste officer (mother Indian, father white)

          in British India at  the time of  the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. White

          officers habitually refuse  to  share  their quarters  with  him,

          causing the commander's daughter (Terry Moore)  at  the  fort  to

          resent the unfairness and start to  fall  in  love with Power. He

          and  his native troops save  the  fort after the whites fail, and

          Power is finally accepted by the British as  an officer and as  a

          future son-in-law.

          Actually, the interracial element of the plot was urged by Zanuck

          (and,  on  the  issue  of casting such roles,  Power  was  almost

          certain to be the lead considering his status at 20th C-Fox). For

          three years, different versions of  the screenplay went back  and

          forth on whether the  man  or woman would  be native to India. In

          the original book by Talbot Mundy, which was only related to  the

          1954 movie by title, there was a strong heroine of Russian-Indian

          background, with  a white British hero. This had been retained in

          1924 and 1929 films of the story.

          KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES was a major box-office success. One  of

          the several pictures made in  the  next year imitating it, BENGAL

          BRIGADE, also contained an inter-racial romance, although  it  is

          between an Englishman and  a native woman, and  is depicted as  a

          failure.

          And, as  may  be inferred from  the  four examples cited already,

          inter-racial romance is  a  major  motif  in historical adventure

          films.

          Interestingly, the director of KING  OF  THE KHYBER RIFLES, Henry

          King, told  me  in  an interview that  he  found  the romance the

          intriguing part  of  the movie. A  year later King  also directed

          LOVE  IS  A  MANY-SPLENDORED  THING,  this  time  with  a  tragic

          love-affair between a  white man  and  an  Asian woman (played by

          Jennifer Jones, just as Tyrone Power was supposed to be Indian).

 

 

          Brian Taves

          Motion Picture-Broadcasting-Recorded Sound Div.

          Library of Congress

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