Vintage Lankan cars used in East of Elephant Rock

by Roger Thiedeman

In 1976 the British movie East of Elephant Rock was filmed entirely on location in Sri Lanka. Although stodgy and forgettable for the most part, perhaps redeemed only by Sri Lanka’s stunning scenery, the movie opens with a sequence eerily reminiscent of the assassination of Malaya’s British High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney near Fraser’s Hill in then Peninsular Malaya’s Pahang State in October 1951.The plot is best summarised in a synopsis (abbreviated and reproduced below) by an erstwhile Rolls-Royce enthusiast friend of mine, the late David Harding of Sydney, Australia.

But first, for the benefit of Sri Lankan motoring aficionados in particular, some information about the cars playing significant roles in the movie. Beginning with the British Governor-General’s official ‘chariot’, 1949 Bentley Mk. VI Standard Steel Saloon, chassis no. B170FV. Since 1933 Bentley motor cars had been built by Rolls-Royce Limited, as a subsidiary brand of the latter company, in the same factories alongside their slightly more prestigious Rolls-Royce stablemates.

The pre-owned Mk. VI B170FV was imported to Ceylon in 1955 by Sir Cyril de Zoysa, the well-known bus company magnate, industrialist, senator and philanthropist, in whose name the Bentley was registered EL 4764. Much later the car was bought by another famous bus, tourist coach and car operator, Mr. Ebert Silva, whose family retains possession of the Bentley to this day.

Another classic car that featured even more prominently than the Bentley in East of Elephant Rock is the 1936 Riley 12/4 Lynx ‘Special Series’ 4-door tourer, reg. no. Z 2776, owned since 1966 by Mr. Ali Azeez. For several decades Azeez has been a passionate ‘driving force’ behind Sri Lanka’s vintage car movement, and remains actively interested in researching, and sharing his encyclopaedic knowledge of, the country’s motoring history.

Other noteworthy motor vehicles in East of Elephant Rock are: a circa 1951/52 Daimler DB18 Consort six-light saloon, reg. no. EY 2625, owned at the time by Mr. Vere de Mel, a motoring enthusiast, successful businessman, innovator of the ‘radio-linked’ taxicab company Quickshaws, tourism entrepreneur, and first Chairman of the Ceylon Transport Board (CTB) in 1958; and a Humber Hawk saloon reportedly formerly owned by prominent criminal lawyer Sir Ukwatte Jayasundera KCMG KBE QC.

The Daimler DB18 Consort departing a prison in a scene from the movie

Here now is David Harding’s compilation on East of Elephant Rock:

East of Elephant Rock

Origin:

1977 (Colour) UK

Director:

Don Boyd

Producers:

Don Boyd, Rick (Richard) Boyle & Gerry Harrison

Cast:

John Hurt (Nash); Jeremy Kemp (Harry Rawlins); Judi Bowker (Eve Proudfoot); Christopher Cazenove (Robert Proudfoot); Anton Rodgers (Mackintosh); Tariq Yunus (Inti); Vajira Cabraal (Sharmani); Sam Poythress (1st Governor-General); Edward De La Mare (2nd Governor-General); Geoffrey Hale (Commissioner); J.B.L. Gunasekera (Sharmani’s uncle); Upali Attanayake (Rawlins’s houseboy); Philip Grice (man in rickshaw)

Synopsis

(WITH SPOILER ALERTS) adapted and edited by David Harding from an anonymous viewer’s comment in imdb.com website:

“An obvious adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s play ‘The Letter’, directed in far more satisfactory fashion by William Wyler in 1940, this film features John Hurt (Nash) as a British Embassy official in an unnamed Southeast Asian British colony of 1948, manifestly patterned after post-war Malaya with its massive rubber plantations of that era. Hurt – who later achieved worldwide fame and acclaim in the title role of The Elephant Man (1980) – plays Nash, whose empathy for the King’s misused colonial subjects is hailed with a deafening thud by the plantation and administrative elite, chiefly embodied by Harry Rawlins (Jeremy Kemp).

1949 Bentley Mk. VI chassis no. B170FV, reg. no. EL 4764

“Nash, who has a native mistress Sharmani (Vajira Cabraal), finds time to woo Eve Proudfoot (Judi Bowker), the young wife of First Secretary Robert Proudfoot (Christopher Cazenove), all of which leads to murder and other unpleasantness. A strong impression is given that this is a work in progress, with director Don Boyd not knowing or caring quite what to make of the material at hand, with editing flaccid at best, a consistently obtrusive soundtrack (including some unintentionally humorous placement of songs), conventional handling of critical scenes, and with abrupt modifications upon characters’ personalities enfeebling any logic which may be hiding within the script.

“Filmed entirely in Sri Lanka, much resembling Malaysia, which latter is laden to this day with Indian workers imported by the English, the work is adequately cast, although Hurt is hindered by his lines, Bowker is far too unseamed and seraphic for her bitchy role, and perhaps the best actor of the cast, Anton Rodgers, has but sparse opportunity during his brief appearances to utilize his pungently dry manner.

“The Bentley is seen in the opening scenes, driving away from the Governor-General’s mansion with only G-G (ensconced in rear seat) and chauffeur on board, and followed by a Ford Thames army truck with armed escort. On a lonely and narrow country road, the car’s passage is blocked by an elephant with mahout. (This scene is reminiscent of one in the 1953 movie Elephant Walk, also filmed in Ceylon/Sri Lanka, where the passage of 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Barker tourer 122HC, with passengers Peter Finch and Vivien Leigh, is impeded by a wild bull elephant.)

“When the chauffeur alights to tell the mahout to clear the road, he is set upon and attacked by a gang of machete-wielding nationalist rebels. The Governor-General then steps out to the aid of his chauffeur, but he too is attacked. Both men are then dragged away to a nearby rice field, where the insurgents hack them to death and make their escape seconds before the army truck’s tardy arrival on the scene. (The scene is even more chillingly evocative of the ambush and murder, by Malayan-Chinese Communist insurgents, of British High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney while travelling with his wife and secretary in 1950 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Park Ward limousine WHD52 on October 6, 1951.)”

The photos below of the principal cars in East of Elephant Rock are, with one exception, screenshots from the YouTube video of the movie in its 90-minute entirety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnFO_YD8brw&t=301s