Victoria, but rather goes through many upheavals and eventually finds love with an Indian woman.) A related issue is that in the book, Victoria Jones is described as having a distinctly brown skin, being of partly Indian ancestry. When she wears a sari, she looks very much like an Indian girl, and much of the theme of the book concerns her attraction to the idea of being exactly that. For the same reason, she is well aware that if she were to marry Savage and go with him to England, she could expect to meet social rejections from his upper class milieu. All of these factors, which have a significant influence on the personality of Victoria as depicted in the book, were profoundly changed in the film by the choice of casting the white American actress Ava Gardner for the role. Production The novel was the fourth by John Masters about India. MGM outbid two other studios to buy the film rights, paying more than $100,000. Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger were announced as leads almost immediately; Gardner had been on suspension at the studio for refusing to appear in Love Me or Leave Me. George Cukor was assigned to direct. He travelled to India in October 1954 to research the movie. "I feel that for the first time India has been presented in this book as it really is, instead of the usual hokey-pokey atmosphere in which it is painted by most authors who write about it", he said. The Indian government refused to cooperate with the production of the film. The fictional location Bhowani Junction was in India, most probably Bhusawal. MGM had wanted to shoot the film in location in India; but, as the government of India insisted on script approval and imposed high taxes, MGM decided to film in Pakistan where the government was more welcoming. As a result of the change in location to Pakistan, the script was altered to show Rodney Savage in command of the 1/13 Frontier Force Battalion (Coke's Rifles), which at that time of filming was part of the 7th (Golden Arrow) Division of the Pakistan Army, rather than in command of a Gurkha Battalion, the 1/13 Gorkha Rifles, as in the book. Pakistan army and police enthusiastically assisted in the making of the film. Several Pakistan army units of the 7 Golden Arrow Division including the 5th Battalion of 13th