Au rythme des tambours fleuris

The 1961 musical "Flower Drum Song" is a fabulous Ross Hunter [1] production (top-notch art direction, cinematography, costume design, set decoration, film editing and sound). I found myself enjoying it more and more. I do like "The King and I" "Oklahoma!" "Carousel", yet "Flower Drum Song" is culturally diverse, 'oriental USA' and very much San Franciscan. Directed by Henry Koster [2], music and lyrics from the popular pair of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, with Alfred Newman supervised & conducted the music score which included a wide spectrum from Asian 'flower drum song' tune, to jazzy rhythm, strings orchestral for ballet/dance pieces, to montage songs and cabaret show numbers / big band melodies; associate vocal music arranger Ken Darby, and simply marvelous choreography by Hermes Pan.

Such a stellar cast: Nancy Kwan as Linda Low and Jack Soo as Sammy, Miyoshi Umeki as Mei Li and James Shigeta as Ta, Juanita Hall (of "South Pacific" 1958 fame) as Madam Liang / 'my wife's sister,' Benson Fong as Ta's father / 'my sister's husband,' Reiko Sato as Helen Chao (the seamstress), and what an amazing, versatile dancer Patrick Adiarte is (his debut role was in "The King and I" 1956 as the eldest prince opposite Yul Brynner). The musical numbers and songs are catchy and entertaining, matching key segments of the storyline: A Hundred Million Miracles; (What Are We Going To Do About) The Other Generation; Chop Suey; I Enjoy Being A Girl; Sunday (Sweet Sunday); Fan Tan Fannie; Grant Avenue; Love Look Away (sung by Marilyn Horne); Don't Marry Me; and more. Turning on the subtitles feature, one can see the lyrics and easy to sing along, too.

Based on C.Y. Lee's novel of the same name, Joseph Fields (also associate producer) wrote an engaging screenplay, blended humor and 'coined' words of the times within the dialogs. Juanita Hall's grocery food order ("four pounds of seahorse, two pounds of dry snake meat, a box of longevity noodles") over the phone ending with "and a dozen thousand-year eggs, and be sure they're fresh" is an absolute gem. Imagine TV turned out to be a resource of solution to our heroines and their beaus romantic predicaments. Unforgettable: Mei Li said to Ta, "tomorrow we must go to Temple of Tin How and thank the Goddess of Heaven for television." Such quality produced films are rare these days. If you don't usually watch musicals, give "Flower Drum Song" a try, it's drama and humor would provide an enjoyable time.

[1] Memorables produced by Ross Hunter: "The Chalk Garden" 1964 (d: Ronald Neame; Hayley Mills, Deborah Kerr, John Mills); "Pillow Talk" 1959 (with Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Thelma Ritter, Tony Randall); "Imitation of Life" 1959 (d: Douglas Sirk; Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Sandra Dee)

[2] Favorites directed by Henry Koster: "Three Smart Girls" 1936 with Deanna Durbin; "The Singing Nun" 1966 with Debbie Reynolds. Highly recommend - intelligent drama with suspense (in B/W, not a musical): "No Highway in the Sky" 1951with James Stewart as an aeronautical engineer who's steadfast and persistent, Glynis Johns as the sensible and caring air hostess, and Marlene Dietrich as only Dietrich could. (VHS only as yet)

All right, all right. Yes, "Flower Drum Song" is a bit dated, sexist, and even a little stereotypical. The score contains a few great numbers like "Love, Look Away" and "I Enjoy Being a Girl" (In spite of the sexist lyrics, it's a fun song), but overall is not as good as other Rodgers and Hammerstein scores. But there is still much to like and enjoy in this charming film version of R&H's Broadway hit. The cast is great, and includes several veterans of the Broadway show, most notably former Oscar-winner Miyoshi Umecki, who is utterly enchanting as Mei Li, completely rising above the characterization of a placid "picture bride" who just sort of goes with the flow and doesn't question any of her "superiors" (men) with a performance that is sweetly comical and even a little touching at times. Other Broadway veterans Patrick Adiarte (You would never guess he was the same guy who was that annoying Crown Prince in the movie of The King and I) and Juanita Hall (from South Pacific) are likewise great, and Jack Soo is hilarious as the hip, deadpan Sammy Fong. Of the actors chosen just for the film, James Shigeta has a pleasent voice and acting style as Wang Ta, and Benson Fong is good enough in the rather stereotypical role of the stubbornly traditionalist Chinese father. As for Nancy Kwan as Linda Low, she is rather wooden as an actress and must've been an even worse singer (As she was dubbed by BJ Baker), but does a great job dancing in the nightclub sequences. But yes, Pat Suzuki from the Broadway show would've been a much better choice, judging by the original cast recording. Reiko Sato is pretty good as Helen Chao and Marilyn Horne does a beautiful job of dubbing her in "Love, Look Away." Aside from the great cast, the orchestrations are wonderful and better than the Broadway arrangements, and the choreography by Hermes Pan is really, really good. This is one of the more faithful filmizations of a Broadway show, aside from cutting one song (The forgettable "Like a God"), re-ordering a few others and throwing in a few new scenes. And while perhaps Rodgers and Hammerstein couldn't quite bring the depth to this story of Chinese immigrants adjusting to life in San Francisco's Chinatown, they did it with great charm and overall respect. There are many delights in the score such as "A Hundred Million Miracles," the hilarious "Don't Marry Me," "Sunday," "Grant Avenue," and the lovely "You Are Beautiful." Even if these are not on a level with the other R&H scores, they are well-written and memorable. Truly an under-rated film that deserves another look. Right now in Los Angeles, a new revival of the stage version with a completely new book by Asian-American playwright David Henry Hwang is appearing, possibly on its way to Broadway. It makes sense to finally have this story told from a truly Asian-American perspective, and hopefully, though some of Hwang's choices sound a bit odd, (Putting in something about CHinese opera, cutting Sammy Fong and the whole "Other Generation" song and idea, which is pretty crucial to the original, and making Mei Li a refugee from Chinese Communism) hopefully this new version will further allow people to reconsider their view of this show and its film version.

A groundbreaking and charming film. It doesn't reach quite as high as maybe it could have and it's got a few flaws, but it was enormous step forward at the time, and it's entertaining besides. The cast has a lot of underrated star power (Nancy Kwan and James Shigeta), there are some really nice musical numbers, and the heart of this film is in the right place, treating Asian-Americans as people for a change.

The main message of this film is pretty loud and clear to me - Asian-Americans are just as American as anyone else - and this is where the film truly shines. Quite a bit of it deals with the gap between older and younger generations, and could have been applied to any immigrant culture. We see the kids spouting slang, playing baseball, and dressed up as Revolutionary War figures for a parade. In one number we see the electric Nancy Kwan singing not in some exotic getup or about some Chinese-specific theme, but simply "I Enjoy Being a Girl" in front of three mirrors ala Marilyn Monroe or Bridget Bardot. Jack Soo is a nightclub owner and as smooth as Dean Martin, and suave leading man James Shigeta reminded me of Peter Lawford. None of them speak with an awful accent or in caricature, and one of the nice moments early on shows that people on the streets of Chinatown don't necessarily know how to read Chinese. The story that has three women (Reiko Sato is the third) romantically interested in the two men is a little silly, but it's similar to others in this genre, it's pretty damn nice to see the male characters not emasculated and the open kissing. Quite a bit of the film is universal.

It's a little hit and miss in the musical numbers, but there are several standouts:

• The three kids dancing and singing in "The Other Generation" - absolutely adorable.
• Nancy Kwan in her lingerie and beautiful outfits in "I Enjoy Being a Girl" - hello, and she's fantastic throughout.
• The ensemble cast breaking out into vibrant American dancing towards the end of "Chop Suey" - very cool and so joyful.
• Reiko Sato in "Love Look Away," which includes some dreamy and ethereal effects - simply gorgeous.

There are also some nice little visual touches, such as the different mirrors reflecting different things in "I Enjoy Being a Girl," and black and white cowboy and Indian characters coming out of a TV to run around in "Sunday." The latter are played by Asian-Americans and there's a lot to unpack there, but suffice to say it's a little unfortunate this bit wasn't based on some other traditional/classic American movie type.

Where the film fails a bit is in its depiction of Chinese customs, which is maybe not surprising given the Western writers/composers and the fact that this was playing to a 1961 audience, but a little disappointing nonetheless. The 'flower drum song' ("A Hundred Million Miracles") is unengaging musically and inauthentic culturally, and watching the first performance in the Celestial Gardens nightclub is like eating a highly westernized version of Chinese food. While most of the characters are far from stereotypical and quite refreshing, the young woman from China (Miyoshi Umeki) is too subservient, particularly when she finds herself being paired up with the nightclub owner and more than willing to accept all of his flaws. Her character and her musical performances were my least favorite part of the film, though even she has a nice little moment imitating Soo at the end of "Don't Marry Me."

Overall though, this is a fine film, even touching on humanizing illegal immigration. You can count films from Hollywood with such Asian representation on one hand over the years, and unless I'm forgetting one, the next wouldn't be for over three decades (The Joy Luck Club (1993)). It's a shame that Anna May Wong died earlier in the year at just 56, and couldn't play the part of the aunt/sister-in-law as planned, or even see the film - I'm sure she would have loved it.

Many of the songs are very well done and enjoyable, especially Nancy Kwan's "I Enjoy Being a Girl." Yowza! All the actors are fabulous and the lines are a ball. Not only is it a love story but a great tale of modern vs. traditional values and absolutely suitable for all ages.

Speaking for myself, I have been a huge fan of FDS since the '70s when I bought the soundtrack album (on Decca) at a used record store for $7. I saw it on TV one new years day i think 1980 and it's been one of my favorites ever since. Not only is it one of R and H's best scores, Alfred Newman's arrangements are simply lush and beautiful. The cast and the director are all top notch. The screen play is delightful, perhaps a bit long, but rather too long than eliminate one of the great songs, some of which were already edited down from the original Broadway version which was directed by the great Gene Kelly. I have often wondered what would have happened if he had directed the movie. On stage, I do like the full two versions of The Other Generation, for example.

My wife is from the Peoples Rep. of China. Shes 28 and has been in the USA for 15 months as of this writing. I was going through my stuff recently in storage and came across of my heavily yellowed copy of CY Lee's novel FDS and thought my wife would enjoy it. She did. So i thought well now it's time to break out my old VHS copy which i hadn't seen since 1990. it was playable but storage hasn't been very kind to it. C'Mon DVD!!!

Her final comment was "cute". Benson Fong's Mr. Wang reminded her of her own father. Even though my wonderful father in law is a hard line communist, I see the obvious paternal, controlling similarities between them. He made her very nostalgic for her home land and her family. If we ever have any sons, he will probably be like Wang San in many ways and she could see the old man's reaction to his youngest son's could be very similar between her father and our son yet to be conceived.

What she thought was laughably bad was "A Hundred Million Miracles" trying to be passed off as a real flower drum song. She said, "if they sung that in China as a flower drum song they would have been stoned to death." She almost lost interest in the movie at that point especially since the movie and original play deviate from the novel at that point. So she didn't buy that at all. Sammy Fong's lecherous behavior was also realistic for a Chinese businessman. My wife related to that too.

She didn't buy some of the costuming especially young women wearing hats. Married women wore hats in the '50s but Mei Li apparently wouldn't.

Speaking of Mei Li, she totally bought her character both in the book and the movie. Very realistic portrayal and Miyoshi looked like a typical peasant girl albeit Miyoshi is Japanese not Chinese and that was evident immediately.

Linda Low, though not a big part of the novel, if at all, (I have forgotten if that character appears in it), was another realistic character, even today in 2006!! She reminded both us of, well... shall we say... materialistic girls you could meet everyday in Shanghai, the ones that unsuspecting foreigners need to be careful of. In any event, Nancy Kwan has another fan in my wife. We have a copy of Suzie Wong - book and movie - in China.

For myself, it was interesting seeing the movie after having lived three years in the PRC and what an admirable job the creators of the movie did in keeping with the culture. They missed a few things obviously, but for two Jewish boys from NYC, R and H as well as Joseph Fields libretto did an awesome job of keeping it real, much more so here than with the King and I which both play and movie are banned forever in Thailand because the Thai people find it so offensive.

As far as David Hwang's remake of FDS goes, I really can't comment on it because I haven't read it or seen it. I don't know if I really want to although I am curious just because I have been a supporter of FDS for so many years. If the idea for the remake is to resemble the novel more, than I am all for it. I love the novel and I think the original play and movie missed opportunities for beefing up the Helen Chao character better. She just kinds of disappears with no mention of her suicide after the hauntingly beautiful "Love Look Away" a show stopper if there ever was one. That is a flaw.

I just love Sammy Fong. How can you have FDS without Sammy Fong? He is just so sleazy and brilliant and wonderful invention by the creative team. How can you do FDS without 'the other generation" in any version. That's the whole point of the both the novel and the original play as well as the movie - the generation gap and the cultural gap. In portraying that, FDS, the original play and movie, succeed on pretty much every level If the idea to create a new version of FDS was because the movie and play portrayed negative stereotypes, my wife who is Chinese has to disagree. She loves the characters in this movie; in many ways, they brought China to life for her and what it is like living in a totally new culture, not understanding anything at all, or in her case thinking you know a foreign culture because you have worked with foreigners and finding it's completely different over here.

Kudos and thank you to RandH, Ross Hunter and his team in creating a movie that has aged so gracefully, (as has Ms. Kwan) for the most part, and making serious cultural and generational issues that will probably never go away fun. This movie will be current in 100 years.