Trivia / A Passage to India

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Peggy Ashcroft was a stage actress who had appeared in films only sporadically. She was initially not enthusiastic when David Lean asked her to be Mrs Moore. "Mr Lean, I’m 75-years-old," she protested. "So am I," he replied. Although she had recently worked in India on The Jewel in the Crown, she said, "I thought, 'Oh dear, I really don’t want to do it', but it's very difficult to turn down a Lean film."
• Career Resurrection: For James Fox. Despite a prominent start in The '60s, his deep involvement in drug culture, along with his father's death, precipitated a physical and mental breakdown. Fox left acting for 14 years to become a Christian missionary before this film gave him a major comeback, both as a leading man and a character actor.
• Deleted Role: The character of Mr. Hadley as filmed was a nice little cameo but in editing most of his scenes were deleted and all of his lines were cut as well.
• Fake Brit: Australian Judy Davis as the Englishwoman Adela Quested.
• Fake Nationality: British Alec Guinness as Hindu Brahmin Professor Godbole.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • The relationship between David Lean and Alec Guinness deteriorated during the making of the movie. The final straw came for Guinness when he found out that a large chunk of his scenes had been left on the cutting floor by Lean. Neither man ever met or spoke to the other again. Lean also had frequent on-set clashes with Judy Davis, who said he didn't understand women and accused him of having lost his touch, not having directed for 15 years. Victor Banerjee argued with Lean over Aziz' accent and dismissed him as a hack compared to Satyajit Ray (who had just directed him in Ghare Baire). And while Lean hurled a constant barrage of insults at James Fox over his performance, Fox mostly shrugged them off.
  • As well as some cast members, Lean steadily alienated most of the heads of department and their crew during production. The situation on set deteriorated to such an extent that the producer John Brabourne had to order the camera crew to at least say "good morning" to Lean each day.
• The Other Marty: Nigel Hawthorne was cast as Turton but fell ill and was replaced on-set by Richard Wilson.
• Saved from Development Hell: Various filmmakers tried adapting the novel over the years, but Forster refused to grant the rights as he feared that any film would take the side of either the English or Indians. Among the early candidates was David Lean himself, who read the novel in the late '50s and wanted the novel as a follow-up to The Bridge on the River Kwai. Santha Rama Rau, who wrote the stage adaptation of Passage, interested Satyajit Ray in adapting it, but Forster again turned them down. Merchant Ivory also attempted to buy the rights in the late '70s.
• Troubled Production: Compared to David Lean's other shoots, his final film was a breeze, with even the Indian location shooting going smoothly. Except for one thing: Lean and his stars were constantly at each others' throats.
  • Alec Guinness testified in his diaries to the toxic atmosphere on set, resulting in cast and crew insulting Lean behind his back, and occasionally to his face. Judy Davis told Lean "You can't fucking well direct" and claimed he didn't understand women. Victor Banerjee argued with Lean over Aziz's accent, calling him "obnoxious" and a hack compared to Satyajit Ray, with whom he'd just finished work on Ghare Baire. Peggy Ashcroft disliked Lean's altering the novel and "lack of respect" for her co-stars. James Fox suffered near-constant, unmotivated insults from Lean over his performance, but, unlike his co-stars, he mostly shrugged them off. Finally, of course, was Guinness himself: playing the Indian mystic Godbole, he spent weeks learning an intricate Hindu dance, only to have Lean cut the entire scene in post-production.
  • It wasn't just the cast who grew tired of Lean's prima donna behavior. Santha Rama Rau, who had written the 1960 stage adaptation of India, was originally contracted to write the screenplay. Though Lean rejected her script as unsatisfactory, Rau discovered that Lean incorporated much of her dialogue into the finished film anyway; ultimately, she received a screen credit after threatening a lawsuit. Lean also disliked his cinematographer Ernest Day, eventually "promoting" him to assistant director and sending Day to film superfluous landscape and crowd scenes that didn't make it into the final movie.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Forester originally wrote that Aziz did indeed rape Adela, but later decided against it.
  • David Lean hoped to reunite the stars of Brief Encounter - Celia Johnson as Mrs. Moore and Trevor Howard as Richard Fielding. They both passed. Also, Johnson died before the film was released.
  • Lean offered Katharine Hepburn the role of Mrs. Moore.
  • Peter O'Toole was the first choice for Richard Fielding.

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