The Rains Came

Watchable enough melodramatic disaster movie, where the romance/drama feels kinda phony, but the special effects during the disaster scenes are really great. Although the story's locale creates the opportunity for some uncomfortable "Classic Hollywood" brownface, I loved Maria Ouspenskaya playing the "Maharani". The movie may have served better with a "Gone With the Wind"(1939) style epic runtime for added drama, but than it might have just been kinda boring, but longer.

So much money was thrown into the production of The Rains Came (1939)! Yet it's one and a half hour of dull romantic melodrama going nowhere and 10 minutes of expensive special effects with the floods. Sure, the effects looked great and brought some much needed excitement, but when it was over, that was it! Feels like when waking up early in the morning from a short nights sleep, then splashing your face with water to freshen up, only to feel tired and sleepy again after the water is dried.