Madame Butterfly

There is no way in the world a film like "Madame Butterfly" could be made today. After all, the entire cast of Japanese folks are played by white folks painted up to look like Asians. Such things were pretty common back in the day....and included films like the Charlie Chan series, "Dragon Seed" (with Katharine Hepburn playing a Chinese lady) and "The Conqueror" (with John Wayne as Genghis Khan and his hottie played by red-headed Susan Hayward!!). My complaint is not just that they are offensive but they also really were ridiculous...especially when Hollywood could have easily given jobs to Asian actors! But such was the attitude of the day....and such is the Japaneseness of "Madame Butterfly". Now not all is bad when it comes to the 'Japanese' in the film. The costumes and sets are terrific and it is obvious Paramount spent a lot of money to make the film. So, at least it looks great.

The story is based on the David Belasco play which was then made into a Puccini opera by the same name. The film, however, is not an opera though some of the music from the opera is included as incidental music.

Lt. Pinkerton (Cary Grant) goes out on the town with his navy pal, Lt. Barton (Charlie Ruggles). Soon Pinkerton meets Cho-Cho San (Sylvia Sidney) and he's smitten with her. But he's informed that he cannot date her or spend time with this geisha. Barton sees a loophole and suggests Pinkerton marry her....and then dump her when his ship leaves. She doesn't realize that Pinkerton is a dirty dog and they are married. Soon after the wedding, Pinkerton leaves....and Cho-Cho waits several years for him to return. In the meantime, she's had his child...a child who he doesn't know he has. Later, Pinkerton returns to Japan....with his new American wife!! What's next? Well, it's best I don't spoil it...see the film.

The story is lovingly made and looks great...and it's also quite moving. It is such a darn shame, then, that the casting decisions were so stupid....fine for 1932 but still stupid when you see it today. Part of this problem isn't just because such casting seems racist. It's also that folks in 2020 know a lot more about Japanese culture and know that what they are being given here is less Japan....and a lot more Puccini and Belasco.

Overall, a very good film version but one that begs to be remade. And, I have to knock off a point for Grant's singing...it's among the worst I've ever heard by an actor...even worse than Lee Marvin's singing in "Paint Your Wagon" but thankfully Grant's is confined to only one terrible song....and it's not a musical with multiple numbers!

Madame Butterfly (1932)

** (out of 4)

Liutenant B.F. Pinkerton (Cary Grant) and Lt. Barton (Charles Ruggles) are on leave in Japan when they decide to have some fun during the night. This leads them to a party with a few maiden's only to have Pinkerton quickly fall for Cho-Cho San (Sylvia Sidney) who is about to become a Geisha. Before long the two are married but shame is about to strike Cho-Cho.

MADAME BUTTERFLY was based on the David Belasco play and it was a huge hit, which made sense for Paramount to then turn it into a motion picture. Sadly, this film here is pretty darn boring from start to finish and there's really very little in it to recommend. There are all sorts of problems with this film ranging from the direction to the casting and I'd even argue that the story just doesn't translate very well to the screen here.

The biggest problem is the fact that they've got an all white cast doing these Japanese roles. Look, I understand that this was just common practice back in the day and I really don't blame the filmmakers and I'm certainly not going to go on some sort of political rant. With that said, there isn't even an attempt to make these white actors even sound Japanese. I love Sideny but she was just wrong for this role here. She might hit the dramatic notes just fine but the lack of an accent just doesn't help matters. With everyone speaking pretty much English it just makes the film seem all the more cheap.

Even Grant isn't all that good here. His charm is on 100% but the character is just rather bland as are the supporting players. Speaking of bland, director Marion Gering doesn't do a thing with the picture. Visually it's quite boring and I'd argue that the story itself drags out so badly that by the hour mark you're just ready for it to be over. MADAME BUTTERFLY has been filmed several times since but this 1932 version is just flat.

Heaven knows what possessed Paramount to cast Sylvia Sydney in this in the first place, unless it was a desire to find a novel context for her to suffer in. Given that they did, it's actually been done with taste and elegance, Puccini is used quite well as incidental music on the soundtrack, and Miss Sidney is as moving as she always is (we can imagine only too well what a western woman wronged so grievously would have done with the dagger she reaches purposefully for at the conclusion).

Those outraged at the casting of a Jewish/American actress as a geisha should also take note of the fact that All-American cad Pinkerton is played by a Bristolian.

John Luther Long wrote the short story that Belasco turned into a successful stage play, and Puccini an opera he tinkered ith for three years and five versions. Long described himself near the end of his life as "a sentimentalist and a feminist." He based the tale on one his sister, a missionary in Japan, had told him. There's no doubt it qualifies as sentimental and feminist!

Like most of Sylvia Sidney's roles in this period, the audience waits for the moment when she breaks down in inconsolable tears over the unworthy B.F. Pinkerton. Gary Cooper had been proposed to play the role. Cooper was too important, and Cary Grant was young, very good-looking, and wouldn't cost the production much in the part; given how much set designer Wiard Ihnen and costume designer Travis Banton were spending, it was a good choice. Grant isn't called to be on screen for that long, and isn't called on to do much in the way of acting; Berton Churchill as the American consulate, offers a far more nuanced performance in about four minutes of screen time.

It's clear why this movie disappeared for decades. With suicide, bigamy and miscegenation in the mix, there was no way to re-release it under the Production Code. Alas, if it's not one thing, it's another; nowadays, its use of yellowface renders it equally problematic. Nonetheless, looking at it through the character's broken English, it's another of Miss Sidney's fine performances in a heartbreaking story, one that convinces me that sentimentality and feminism is a good thing.... at least by late 19th century standards. And the visuals are superb.

MADAME BUTTERFLY (Paramount, 1932), directed by Marion Gering, stars Sylvia Sidney in one of her most atypical movie roles of her career, as well as memorable, that of a Japanese maiden. Those familiar with the Giacomo Puccini opera of that same name, will take notice that this screen adaptation is not an operatic reproduction but just simply a straightforward dramatic story in itself.

As for the plot, Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton (Cary Grant) and Lieutenant Barton (Charlie Ruggles) are two American Navy officers on shore in Japan. At a gathering, Pinkerton meets Cho-Cho San (Sylvia Sidney), a beautiful Japanese maiden who is about to become a Geisha. She disgraces her family by accepting Pinkerton's love to become his bride. Although she takes her marriage vows seriously, theirs are not truly bound with love. After the "honeymoon" is over, Pinkerton returns to the states with the fleet, with Cho-Cho San, whom Pinkerton has nicknamed "Butterfly," remaining in Japan where she keeps his home until he returns. Three years pass. During that time, Cho-Cho San, has given birth to a son she names "Trouble" (Philip Horomate). She is still confident that someday her husband will return to her. But what has happened to Pinkerton during that time? Did he go down with his ship? No quite. He has married his fiancé, an American girl named Adelaide (Sheila Terry), whom he intends on taking with him to Japan.

Sylvia Sidney, who by this time has been playing tragic American heroines in such Depression dramas as AN American TRAGEDY and STREET SCENE (both 1931), resumes playing this sort of role, but this time as a Japanese girl. She gives a believable performance, particularly with her round doll face features. Cary Grant, still relatively new to films and on a fast rise to leading man status, is acceptable as Pinkerton, giving one of his more noted performances during his early years as a screen actor, which began the very year of the release of MADAME BUTTERFLY. Charlie Ruggles provides some humorous moments as Barton.

The supporting cast includes: Helen Jerome-Eddy and Grandma San; Edmund Breese as Cho-Cho's grandfather; Sandor Kallay as Goro; with Irving Pichel as Yomadori; Berton Churchill as Sharpless; and Louise Carter as Suzuki.

Rarely seen in recent years, MADAME BUTTERFLY used to have frequent revivals during the mid afternoon or after midnight hours on commercial television way back in the 1960s and 70s, and with Cary Grant who had reached super star status in motion pictures lasting more than 20 years (retiring in 1966), his name alone would guarantee viewer-ship whenever shown.

While MADAME BUTTERFLY is an acceptable version based on David Belasco's play, the plot, however, can be a trifle slow at times during its 85 minutes of screen time, but Sylvia Sidney's performance, the presence of Cary Grant, as well as the reproduction of Japanese settings, make this curio worth watching, it it could ever be found or revived again. (***)