FAQ

It was a lucky day when Chinese farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni) married freed kitchen slave O-lan (Luise Rainer). She was a hard worker, a good cook, and brought sons and luck to the household. When they begin to prosper, O-lan encourages Lung to purchase more land. Even when a famine forces them to head south to the city in search of work, O-lan refuses to sell their land and remains at Lung's side until a stroke of luck allows them to return to their property as wealthy landowners. Now that Lung has everything he's ever wanted, he risks losing it all when he becomes infatuated with Lotus (Tilly Losch), a pretty young dancer at the local tea house.

The Good Earth is a 1931 novel by American writer Pearl S Buck. Buck, who actually lived in China for most of her life, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel in 1943 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1944. The Good Earth is the first book in a trilogy that includes Sons (1943) and A House Divided (1945). The screenplay for The Good Earth was written by American screenwriters Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West, based on the novel and on a play by American playwrights Donald Davis and Owen Davis.

Elder Son's (Keye Luke) plan to fight the locusts works, and the fields of wheat are saved. On the day of Elder Son's wedding, O-Lan takes to her deathbed but watches the wedding banquet from an adjacent room. As the guests make merry, Wang Lung comes to sit at his wife's bedside and tells her that she was the best wife a man could have. He places the two pearls in her hand. She smiles and passes away. In the final scene, Wang Lung goes outside to look over his land and says, "O-Lan, you are the Earth!"

Producer Irving Thalberg wanted to cast Chinese actors in the major roles but, for several reasons, it was not possible. For one, racist attitudes were prevalent in Hollywood during the 1930s. For another, the film was shot in California (other than a few exterior sites shot in China), so there were not a lot of Chinese actors to be had. Third, tensions between the Chinese and Japanese, that would eventually lead to the second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), were heightened, and the Chinese government threatened not to approve the movie if any Japanese actors were cast. Consequently, German-born actress Luise Rainer was cast in the role of Wang Lung's wife, O-Lan. Not being able to cast real Chinese actors in the leading roles, Hollywood did the next best thing -- they tried to make the actors look Chinese through their make-up.

At the very beginning of the movie is the following note: "To the Memory of Irving Grant Thalberg we dedicate this picture His last greatest achievement." Irving Grant Thalberg was a popular American film producer. He died in 1936 at the age of 37, one year before The Good Earth was released.

Those who have both seen the movie and read the book say that the movie is a fairly accurate representation of the book. As might be expected, however, the book is much more detailed, and the story is told in greater depth. The ending is also different. At the end of the book, the two sons are walking old Wang Lung out to see his land. The sons promise him that they will always keep the land, but a sly look passes between them.