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{{short description|1937 film by Victor Fleming, Sidney Franklin, Gustav Machatý}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2021}} {{Infobox film | name = The Good Earth | image = The Good Earth (1937) poster.jpg | alt = | caption = Original film poster | director = [[Sidney Franklin (director)|Sidney Franklin]]<br />[[Victor Fleming]] (uncredited)<br />[[Gustav Machatý]] (uncredited) | producer = [[Irving Thalberg]]<br />[[Albert Lewin]]<br />(associate producer) | screenplay = [[Talbot Jennings]]<br />[[Tess Slesinger]]<br />and [[Claudine West]] | based_on = {{based on|''[[The Good Earth]]''<br>1931 novel|[[Pearl S. Buck]]<br>adapted for the stage by<br>[[Owen Davis]]<br>and [[Donald Davis (writer)|Donald Davis]]}} | starring = [[Paul Muni]]<br />[[Luise Rainer]] | music = [[Herbert Stothart]]<br />[[Edward Ward (composer)|Edward Ward]] (uncredited) | cinematography = [[Karl Freund]], [[A.S.C.]] | editing = [[Basil Wrangell]] | studio = [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] | distributor = [[Loews Cineplex Entertainment|Loew's, Inc.]] | released = {{Film date|1937|01|29|United States}}<ref name="Brown134">{{cite book |title=Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywood and the Movie Industry from Its Beginnings to the Present |last=Brown |first=Gene |year=1995 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=0-02-860429-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/movietimechronol00brow/page/134 134] |url=https://archive.org/details/movietimechronol00brow/page/134 |url-access=registration }} [[Carthay Circle Theatre]], Los Angeles.</ref> | runtime = 138 minutes | country = United States | language = English | budget = $2,816,000<ref name="Mannix">{{Citation | title = The Eddie Mannix Ledger | publisher = Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study | place = Los Angeles}}.</ref> | gross = $3,557,000<ref name="Mannix" /> }} '''''The Good Earth''''' is a 1937 American [[Drama (film and television)|drama film]] about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive. It was adapted by [[Talbot Jennings]], [[Tess Slesinger]], and [[Claudine West]] from the 1932 play by [[Owen Davis]] and [[Donald Davis (writer)|Donald Davis]], which was in itself based on the 1931 [[The Good Earth|novel of the same name]] by [[Nobel Prize]]-winning author [[Pearl S. Buck]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2023|reason=Makes sense, but no citation in text}} The film was directed by [[Sidney Franklin (director)|Sidney Franklin]], with uncredited contributions by [[Victor Fleming]] and [[Gustav Machaty]]. The film stars [[Paul Muni]] as Wang Lung. For her role as his wife O-Lan, [[Luise Rainer]] won an [[Academy Award for Best Actress]]. The film also won the [[Academy Award for Best Cinematography]] for [[Karl Freund]]. It was nominated for [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]], [[Academy Award for Best Film Editing|Best Film Editing]], and [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]]. Its [[world premiere]] was at the elegant [[Carthay Circle Theatre]] in [[Los Angeles]]. ==Plot== In pre-[[World War I]] northern China, young farmer Wang Lung ([[Paul Muni]]) marries O-Lan ([[Luise Rainer]]), a slave at the Great House, the residence of the most powerful family in their village. O-Lan proves to be an excellent wife, hard working and uncomplaining. Wang Lung prospers. He buys more land, and O-Lan gives birth to two sons and a daughter. Meanwhile, the Great House begins to decline. All is well until a drought and the resulting famine drive the family to the brink. O-Lan gives birth to a second daughter but kills her shortly after birth to spare her from starvation. Desperate, Wang Lung considers the advice of his pessimistic, worthless uncle ([[Walter Connolly]]) to sell his land for food, but O-Lan opposes it. Instead, they travel south to a city in search of work. The family survives by begging and stealing. When a revolutionary gives a speech to try to drum up support for the army approaching despite rain in the north, Wang Lung and O-Lan realize the drought is over. They long to return to their farm, but they have no money for an ox, seed, and food. The city changes hands, and O-Lan joins a mob looting a mansion. However, she is knocked down and trampled upon. When she comes to, she finds a bag of jewels overlooked in the confusion. This windfall allows the family to go home and prosper once more. O-Lan asks only to keep two pearls for herself. Years pass. Wang Lung's sons grow up into educated young men, and he has grown so wealthy that he purchases the Great House. Then, Wang Lung becomes besotted with Lotus ([[Tilly Losch]]), a pretty, young dancer at the local [[tea house]], and makes her his second wife. He begins to find fault with the worn-out O-Lan. Desperate to gain affection from Lotus, he gives O-Lan's pearls to Lotus. When Wang Lung discovers that Lotus has seduced Younger Son (Roland Lui), he orders his son to leave. Then a swarm of [[locust]]s threatens the entire village. Using a strategy devised by Elder Son ([[Keye Luke]]), everyone unites to try to save the crops. Just when all seems lost, the wind shifts direction, taking the danger away. The near-disaster brings Wang Lung back to his senses. He reconciles with Younger Son. On the latter's wedding day, Wang Lung returns the pearls to O-Lan before she dies, completely exhausted by a hard life. Without disturbing the wedding festivities, Wang Lung quietly exits the house and regards a flowering peach tree planted by O-Lan on their marriage day. Reverently he murmurs, "O-Lan, you are the earth." ==Cast== ===Billed=== * [[Paul Muni]] as Wang * [[Luise Rainer]] as O-Lan * [[Charley Grapewin]] as Old Father * [[Tilly Losch]] as Lotus * [[Walter Connolly]] as Uncle * [[Jessie Ralph]] as Cuckoo * [[Soo Yong]] as Aunt * [[Keye Luke]] as Elder Son * [[Roland Got|Roland Lui]] as Younger Son * Suzanna Kim as Little Fool * Ching Wah Lee as Ching * [[Harold Huber]] as Cousin * [[Olaf Hytten]] as Liu [[grain trade|grain merchant]] * William Law as Gateman * Mary Wong as Little Bride ===Unbilled=== * [[Charles Middleton (actor)|Charles Middleton]] as banker * [[Chester Gan]] as tea house singer * [[Richard Loo]] as Chinese Farmer * [[Kam Tong]] as Chinese Peasant * [[Victor Sen Yung]] as Chinese Peasant * [[Philip Ahn]] as revolutionary army captain * [[Bessie Loo]] as Baby * [[Clarence Lung]] * [[Sammee Tong]] as Chinese Man * Richard Daniel Cazares as baby * [[King Lan Chew]] as dancer ==Production== The film's budget was $2.8 million, a small fortune at the time, and took three years to make.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} A five-hundred-acre farm in [[Porter Ranch, Los Angeles, California|Porter Ranch, California]], was transformed into a replica of Chinese farmland for this film.<ref name="Roar140">{{citation |last1=Háy |first1=Pete |author-link=Peter Háy |title=MGM: When the Lion Roars |year=1991 |publisher=Turner Publishing, Inc. |location=Atlanta |isbn=1-878685-04-X |page=[https://archive.org/details/mgmwhenlionroars0000hayp/page/140 140] |url=https://archive.org/details/mgmwhenlionroars0000hayp/page/140 }}</ref> The movie script was more sympathetic to China than the novel had been. Wang Lung's son was now a representative of modern China who goes to university and leads the villagers. The family is a wholesome affectionate unit, even the uncle who in the novel exploits Wang Lung, and the sexual aspect of Lotus is played down. The [[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays office]], which supervised each Hollywood script, demanded more than twenty rewrites to eliminate what it found offensive.<ref>Hoban, James L., Jr., "Scripting The Good Earth: Versions of the Novel for the Screen," in Elizabeth Johnston Lipscomb, Frances E. Webb, Peter J. Conn, eds., ''The Several Worlds of Pearl S. Buck'' (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994).</ref> Before Herbert Stothart and Edward Ward were engaged to provide the music, negotiations took place with Austrian composer [[Arnold Schoenberg]],<ref name="Roar140" /> who is known to have made some musical sketches for the score before the plan fell through.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} Pearl Buck intended the film to be cast with all Chinese or Chinese-American actors. [[Irving Thalberg]] also envisioned casting only Chinese actors, but had to concede that American audiences were not ready for such a film. According to [[Variety (magazine)|Variety]], [[Anna May Wong]] had been suggested for the role of O-Lan, but the [[Hays Code]] anti-[[miscegenation]] rules required Paul Muni's character's wife to be played by a white actress.<ref>''Variety'', December 18, 1935, p. 3. See also Hodges, Graham Russell. ''Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 44, 148, 60–67.</ref> Some confusion has resulted because the Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., 1930–1934 stated only that "miscegenation (sex relationship between the white and black races) is forbidden".<ref>The Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., 1930–1934, II, Item 6. No mention was made of miscegenation between whites and any race other than Black Americans.</ref> Chinese-American actress [[Soo Yong]], in fact, was cast as the Chinese aunt who was married to the uncle played by Caucasian actor [[Walter Connolly]].<ref>{{Citation |title=The Good Earth (1937) - IMDb |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028944/fullcredits |access-date=2023-06-16}}</ref> MGM offered Wong the role of Lotus, but she refused, stating, "You're asking me – with Chinese blood – to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters."<ref>{{cite web |last=Quan |first=Kenneth |date=January 9, 2004 |title=Profile of Anna May Wong: Remembering The Silent Star |url=http://asiapacificarts.usc.edu/article@apa?profile_of_anna_may_wong_remembering_the_silent_star_9144.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141013211521/https://asiapacificarts.usc.edu/article@apa?profile_of_anna_may_wong_remembering_the_silent_star_9144.aspx |archive-date=13 October 2014 |access-date=April 12, 2014 |work=Asia Pacific Arts |publisher=University of Southern California}}</ref> Many of the characters were played by [[yellowface|white actors made to look Asian]] through yellowface, make-up techniques developed by [[Jack Dawn]] and used for the first time in this film.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} Others in the supporting cast were Chinese American actors. When MGM inquired into the possibility of making the film in China, the Chinese government was divided on how to respond. Initial hostility derived from resentment of the novel, which critics charged focused only on the perceived backwardness of the country, while some government officials hoped to have control which would be gone if the film work was done outside China. Generalissimo [[Chiang Kai-shek]] himself intervened, perhaps at the behest of his wife, [[Soong Mei-ling|Mme. Chiang]], whose American education made her an advocate for cooperation. Permission was granted on condition that the view of China be favorable, that the Chinese government would supervise and have control of shots done in China, and the unenforced stipulation that the entire cast be Chinese. The government in Nanjing did not foresee the sympathy the film would create and when MGM decided to shoot on location in China officials took extraordinary steps to control the production, forcing the studio to hire a Nationalist general to advise them on authentic settings and costumes (most of this footage was mysteriously lost when it was shipped home and had to be re-shot in California). There were reports that MGM distributed a different version of the film in China.<ref>Zhiwei Xiao, "Nationalism, Orientalism, and an Unequal Treatise of Ethnography: The Making of ''The Good Earth''," in Suzie Lan Cassell, ed., ''From Gold Mountain to the New World: Chinese American Studies in the New Millennium'' (Alta Mira, 2002), pp. 277–79, 283–84.</ref> The film's 1936 production lasted from February 28 to July 23. Thalberg died on September 14, four-and-a-half months before its [[Los Angeles]] premiere on January 29, 1937. The film credits stated that this was his "last great achievement".<ref>Hay, Peter. ''MGM: When the Lion Roars''</ref> Original prints of the film were presented in sepiatone.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Good Earth |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/182/the-good-earth#overview |website=Turner Classic Movies |accessdate=October 30, 2021}}</ref> ==Reception== Contemporary reviews were positive.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} [[Frank Nugent|Frank S. Nugent]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' praised the film as "a superb translation of a literary classic ... one of the finest things Hollywood has done this season or any other. While it has taken some liberties with the novel's text, it has taken none with its quality or spirit."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173FE464BC4B53DFB466838C629EDE |title=Movie Review – The Good Earth |last=Nugent |first=Frank S. |author-link=Frank Nugent |date=February 3, 1937 |website=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=August 31, 2015 }}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' declared it "a remarkable screen production" and called Muni's performance "splendid", but questioned whether the subject matter would make for good box office.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=February 10, 1937 |title=Film Reviews |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |location=New York |publisher=Variety, Inc. |page=14 }}</ref> ''[[Film Daily]]'' raved, "A 'must see' picture, possessing absorbing drama, passionate sincerity and brilliant performance."<ref>{{cite journal |date=February 3, 1937 |title=Reviews of the New Films |journal=[[Film Daily]] |location=New York |publisher=Wid's Films and Film Folk, Inc. |page=9 }}</ref> [[John Mosher (writer)|John Mosher]] of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' called it "a vast and rich film."<ref>{{cite magazine |date=February 6, 1937 |title=The Current Cinema |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |location=New York |publisher=F-R Publishing Corp. |page=59 }}</ref> ''[[Harrison's Reports]]'' described it as "a highly artistic piece of work," and while not exactly an entertaining picture, "those who see it will undoubtedly be awed by its magnificence."<ref>{{cite journal |date=February 13, 1937 |title=The Good Earth |journal=[[Harrison's Reports]] |location=New York |publisher=Harrison's Reports, Inc. |page=3 }}</ref> Writing for ''[[The Spectator]]'' in the UK, [[Graham Greene]] gave the film a mixed good review, characterizing the first half of the film as "simple and direct and true", but complaining that the second half displays "a little less than life" and that the last hour was permeated by "banality and ennui". Discussing the actors, Greene praised Rainer for a "beautiful performance" that "carries the film", and criticized Muni's performance as exaggerated and "not of the same quality" as Rainer's.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Greene|first= Graham|author-link= Graham Greene|date= April 2, 1937|title= The Good Earth/Dark Journey|journal= [[The Spectator]]}} (reprinted in: {{cite book |editor-last= Taylor|editor-first= John Russell |editor-link= John Russell Taylor|date= 1980|title= The Pleasure Dome|url=https://archive.org/details/pleasuredomegrah00gree|url-access= registration|publisher= Oxford University Press|pages= [https://archive.org/details/pleasuredomegrah00gree/page/140 140]–141|isbn=0-19-281286-6}})</ref> ==Box office== According to MGM records the film earned $2,002,000 in the US and Canada and $1,555,000 elsewhere but because of its high cost incurred an ultimate loss of $96,000.<ref name="Mannix" /> ==Awards and honors== {| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" |- ! Award ! Category ! Nominee(s) ! Result |- | rowspan="5"| [[10th Academy Awards|Academy Awards]] | [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Outstanding Production]] | [[Irving Thalberg]] and [[Albert Lewin]] (for [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]) | {{nom}} |- | [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]] | [[Sidney Franklin (director)|Sidney Franklin]] | {{nom}} |- | [[Academy Award for Best Actress|Best Actress]] | [[Luise Rainer]] | {{won}} |- | [[Academy Award for Best Cinematography|Best Cinematography]] | [[Karl Freund]] | {{won}} |- | [[Academy Award for Best Film Editing|Best Film Editing]] | [[Basil Wrangell]] | {{nom}} |- | rowspan="2"| [[National Board of Review Awards 1937|National Board of Review Awards]] | [[National Board of Review: Top Ten Films|Top Ten Films]] | ''The Good Earth'' | {{won}} |- | Best Acting | Luise Rainer | {{won}} |} ==See also== * [[Whitewashing in film]] ==References== {{Reflist}} ==Bibliography== {{Refbegin}} * {{cite book|last=Roan|first=Jeanette|title=[[Envisioning Asia]]: On Location, Travel, and the Cinematic Geography of U.S. Orientalism|chapter=Knowing China: Accuracy, Authenticity and The Good Earth|year=2010|publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]]|location=[[Ann Arbor, Michigan]]|pages=113–55| isbn=978-0-472-05083-3|oclc=671655107}} {{Refend}} ==External links== {{Commons category|The Good Earth (film)}} * {{IMDb title|0028944}} * [https://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-good-earth-am18837 ''The Good Earth'' at AllMovie] * {{AFI film|8507}} * {{TCMDb title|182}} * {{Rotten Tomatoes|good_earth}} {{Sidney Franklin}} {{Irving Thalberg}} {{Pearl S. Buck}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Good Earth (film), The}} [[Category:1937 films]] [[Category:1937 romantic drama films]] [[Category:American romantic drama films]] [[Category:American black-and-white films]] [[Category:1930s English-language films]] [[Category:Films based on American novels]] [[Category:American films based on plays]] [[Category:Films directed by Sidney Franklin]] [[Category:Films directed by Gustav Machatý]] [[Category:Films featuring a Best Actress Academy Award–winning performance]] [[Category:Films produced by Irving Thalberg]] [[Category:Films set in China]] [[Category:Films shot in Beijing]] [[Category:Films shot in China]] [[Category:Films shot in Los Angeles]] [[Category:Films shot in Utah]] [[Category:Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award]] [[Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films]] [[Category:Films based on adaptations]] [[Category:Films scored by Herbert Stothart]] [[Category:Films based on works by Pearl S. Buck]] [[Category:Films scored by Edward Ward (composer)]] [[Category:1930s American films]] [[Category:English-language romantic drama films]] [[Category:Whitewashing in film]]
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