There are some interesting things about this film, an unusual set-up with nuns coping with the strange cultures of colonial India, and, of course, love and loathing. Deborah Kerr and Jean Simmons do an OK if over-the-top job here.

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There are some interesting things about this film, an unusual set-up with nuns coping with the strange cultures of colonial India, and, of course, love and loathing. Deborah Kerr and Jean Simmons do an OK if over-the-top job here.

Mainly, there is just too, too, too much melodrama going on in "Black Narcissus", doomed love between a local and a nun, her attempts to avoid it, and even her direct involvement in another woman's fatal plunge to her death. The camera sets up a number of dramatically lit scenes, lots of dark frames with colorful sunsets, mixtures of animals and people milling about. The music wails loudly and with insistence. None of this really makes the film "go" other than as an example of an over-wrought spectacle of stress and emotion - but not a lot of driving plot.

I generally tend to like movies of this era, but there's more trick than treat here.