The Bitter Tea of General Yen

The Bitter Tea of General Yen is a melodrama set in 1920s China, the late warlord period in which various factions vied for power while Japan quietly built its strength across the sea.  It involves a young missionary woman, a crafty warlord, and the collision of idealism with the practical requirements of power.

A very young Barbara Stanwyck plays the idealistic missionary woman (more of a girl, really, but I don’t think Barbara Stanwyck was ever truly a girl – she was probably the savviest young woman in the second grade), and Nils Asther plays General Yen.  Either Stanwyck is miscast or I just can’t get over the impact of movies like Ball of Fire and Double Indemnity.  I just didn’t buy her idealism, and she can’t quite sell a religious speech on which the movie’s story hinges.  Asther makes a fine general, charming and ruthless, but I couldn’t help but be distracted by the fact that he was a made-up European guy surrounded by an Asian supporting cast.

Since I never bought into the female lead’s character, I never could quite suspend my disbelief and buy into the movie.  Yes, the photography was lovely, as were the sets and costumes.  If nothing else, Ms. Stanwyck was always a pleasure to watch.  But when the spell doesn’t work, we’re left with nothing but pictures and sound.  I wanted to love The Bitter Tea of General Yen, but it didn’t work for me.

It Happened One Night

Actually, it happened over a series of nights. But that's not important right now.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (Capra, 1934), is a romantic comedy / road movie starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Gable's the hard-drinking reporter whose dissolution hasn't yet caught up to his body and mind. Colbert's the spoiled society girl out to spite her father by running off to be with some pansy gyrocopter pilot. Circumstance throws them together in the back of a bus, with Gable telling Colbert, " Excuse me lady, but that upon which you sit is mine." "I beg your pardon?" Well, it will be soon enough.

The two most interesting things about IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT are the dialogue (Colbert to Pansy: "Promise me I'll never get off." Bet on it, sister!) and the power dynamics. Released just months before rules requiring new releases to have the Hayes Code seal of approval came into force, this film seems innocuous, but has some real adult humor going on just beneath the surface. The power dynamics are an interesting combination of gender and class conflicts, with one message sent to women (Submit!) and another to proletarians (Revolt!). Just get a load of this line, spoken by Gable's "man of the people" to the Colbert's millionaire father: "What she needs is a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not. If you had half the brains you're supposed to have, you'd done it yourself, long ago." Dominance and insouciance, apparently, made for successful mainstream entertainment back when the Greatest Generation was in junior high.

But hey, don't watch this picture for material to gripe about at your next meeting of the Working Woman's Collective. Watch this picture to see Gable and Colbert, performers at the top of their respective games, bang out dialogue with near-scientific precision. Watch it for Joseph Walker's cinematography and marvel at the way light plays off a white silk dress in glorious black and white. Watch it for Capra, who knows how to get the most out of even his bit players. Most of all, watch it because it's funny. Watch it with a loved on and bring down the walls of Jericho.

Two for the Weekend

THE SANDLOT is lazily written, horribly acted, altogether miserable, and a laugh riot if you happen to be a five-year-old boy. It's a story about some Boomer kid in the early '60s who moves to the San Fernando Valley and falls in, improbably enough, with a pack of Babe Ruth worshippers. It was like something a guy who grew up in New York would imagine growing up in California to be. This movie made my soul bleed.


MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, on the other hand, was surprisingly successful. As a reasonably cynical Washingtonian, I didn't expect to be taken in by Capra's paean to Americana; nevertheless, I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I think the movie sold me in a scene in which Mr. Smith has a brief conversation with a senior senator's daughter. Instead of focusing on Smith, the camera focuses on his hat. It shifts from left hand to right, gets dropped again and again, and does more to tell me its owner's state of mind than would an extreme closeup. Some movies are great because people generally think they're great. Some are great because they really are. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, thankfully, is the latter.