The Bitter Tea of General Yen

This picture is on TV pretty often, so often that I usually miss it. The title sounds uninviting, like a dull movie about a tea plantation. Then I saw it on a big screen last month at a film festival and I was astonished. I was especially astonished by Nils Asther's portrayal of the General, and I'm not sure I've seen him in anything else. It was a hypnotic performance, as good a job of acting as has ever been put on the Silver Screen. The film was early Stanwyck but she was as good as ever and, coupled with Asther, they worked magic.

The picture has been reviewed about 50 times now and everyone recaps the plot. It's enough to say it is possibly Capra's best effort. I thought the pace of the film compared to "Lost Horizon", the action and energy of the opening scenes and then the placid unfolding of the main story, which in both cases turns out to be a love story - and then the knockout ending. Also noteworthy are the spectacular sets and the shimmering, immaculate photography. I saw it at Cinevent, Columbus, O., 5/13.

Above average classic film about a group of Europeans who suffer mayhem and chaos through the China wars. Subtly radiant Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck of Ball of Fire), a young American, arrives in Shanghai during the threatening Chinese Civil War in order to marry a missionary, Robert Strike (Gavin Gordon). While escaping war-torn China, unexpectedly swept into the arms of an infamous warlord, she is separated from her fiancé and rescued by General Yen (Nils Ashter). Megan becomes both fascinated and repelled by the prospect of miscegenation, although his attempts to seduce her fail. Megan even remains with him while his enemies close in. At his palace, she defends Mah-Li (Toshia Mori) , Yen's mistress, who is suspected of giving secrets to the enemy. Idealistic Megan offers to answer for Mah-Li's actions if her life is spared. Yen knows that Mah-Li will not change, but, motivated by a calm, fatalistic philosophy, and by a growing love for Megan, he agrees. Their Forbidden Love Wrecked an Empire!. The flaming drama of a forbidden love that wrecked an empire!. She came to save souls and nearly lost her own!. A man of the East.... A woman of the Wests.....They dared not share their one desire. They found a love they dared not touch!

This erotic, passionate drama, pre-Hays Code -adapted from the book by Grace Zaring Stone- is by far his finest achievement. It's a decent film, although it can be a bit slow at times, despite its short duration, it only lasts 88 minutes, which is appreciated, because the events that occur are not too many. There is a peculiar circumstance that at the beginning of the film it bears a remarkable resemblance to the start of the movie¨Lost Horizon (1937)¨, in which the characters, while escaping, find themselves immersed in the hustle and bustle, crowds and violence of the Chinese rebellion.

Exotic and poetic, if melodramatic by today's standards. The interracial aspects were deemed very daring for their time. Where Capra's other movies are largely stolid, talky and prosaic, this is sensuous and profoundly cinematic, perhaps most notably in a sequence in which Stanwyck dreams of her seduction by a forceful Asther. There are good performances by the leading duo, the great Barbara Stanwyck and the unknown Nils Asther as the highly sophisticated chinese warlord, along with the classic american secondary actor Walter Connolly, Gavin Gordon and the chinese actress Toshia Mori as Mah-Li. Apart from these, there are no other actors in the film, so more action and more characters are missed.

This engrossing and moving film was competently and originally directed by Frank Capra. It is one of the most unclassifiable rarities of Capra's filmography, as well as one of Francis Ford Coppola's favorite films . The picture was a box office failure due to the scabrous representation of mixed race for the time, (in fact it was banned in the USA until 1967). Today, however, it is considered a hidden masterpiece, being one of the first American films in which an interracial love relationship is addressed. Frank Capra is deemed to be one of the best filmmakers in American cinema; always accompanied by his usual screenwriter and collaborator Robert Riskin, Frank directed seven Academy Award Best Picture nominees: Lady for a Day (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937) that won the Oscar for best production design and best editing, You Can't Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). It Happened One Night and You Can't Take It with You both won Best Picture. Rating The Bitter Tea of General Yen(1932): 6.5/10. Better than average. An odd film, but oddly stirring. Especially recommended to classic film enthusiasts.

Frank Capra made a sort of "little" film in 1933, little in that it starred then up-and-coming Barbara Stanwyck (the future iconic star of Double Indemnity and The Furies had only been in a few films before) and that it dealt with a topic that was very touchy to attempt for in 1933; only Griffith before had tried to deal with some kind of interracial bonding and/or sexual tension between white and Chinese people on screen, at least to my knowledge. What ended up working in favor for Capra with his story, and what makes it still work today still despite the creaky bits of racist dialog (i.e. "China-man" is repeated throughout by the supposedly tolerant missionary Megan Davis), is the script. This has excellent dialog and a potent message about trying to make a difference, to make some sort of change where things are, perhaps in simplification (hey, it's Capra), about the same as they've been for 2,000 years.

It's a message that infers some tendencies to prejudices on both sides, of the white well-educated woman who sees to do good wherever she can and the stalwart General who will try to impress and act cordial around the lady but mostly because he wants to have his way- which may be with her. The story itself sounds kind of typical, probably because by today's standards it is: Megan Davis has just come to China to do missionary work but is caught in the midst of a bad civil war going on, and after a tumultuous battle she gets caught up in in the streets and is knocked out is taken into the 'care' of General Yen (Nils Asther, no, not Chinese apparently but does so good a job as to not notice *too* much). She cannot leave his custody at his palace because of the battling blocking up the train tracks, and has to stick tight... in the span of a week she tries to spare a life of a spy and almost falls for Yen, or maybe more than almost.

It's actually the one complicated and really exacting thing in this production is seeing Asther and Stanwyck on screen. I'm not sure if the latter gave quite a great performance, but for what she's given she elevates it into a stern-faced but kind-hearted portrayal of a woman caught in an untenable situation, and Asther gives as good as he can by bypassing the obvious pit-fall of stereotyping by making Yen a very human figure. He's a man of class and taste but also tradition and with that typical double-edged sword of being ruthless with slaughter and elegant in decorum and in attitude. Somehow Capra is able to garner very good work from them with a story that, in the wrong hands, could become the most ham-fisted thing on the planet.

Luckily not only is Capra uncompromising in dealing with the issues at hand both upfront and underlying in terms of race and ethnicity and just the clashing of cultures, but in technical terms with the bits of battle scenes (the shoot-out late in the film at the train station is breathtaking for 1933 and pretty good for today), and it shows a director so confident in his craft that he could be ready for better things. It might be dated... actually, it is dated. But for any and all faults, it's a picture made with surprising sensitivity and compassion for all its characters, and it doesn't stick to clichés just for the sake of it - it's a solid drama without much pretension, save for a dream sequence that's actually hallucinatory in the best way.

Bitter Tea is one of my favourite Capra films, the earliest one I would call that "much over-worked phrase", a classic. I don't know if the original story was much different, but even being pre-Code this film would be shot much differently nowadays - unfortunately, of course! It appears to be just as hung up about love between the races as any other Golden Age movie was, except the tale's conclusion is more open to interpretation and franker in its portrayal. But even that was spoiled by Walter Connolly's Jerry Springer type moral ramblings at the end as solace for any outraged whites.

It's a murky, atmospheric, lustrous (in the romantic arc-light), absorbing 83 minute journey through a rather horrible world, populated by semi human beings - naturally Western wars are so much more civilised affairs. Throughout Stanwyck does her best and looks her best too, no wonder Gen Yen fell for her! I hope modern Scandanavians don't feel too humiliated by Nils Asther playing a Chinaman though (& v.v.) As a non practising Christian I didn't take offence at the criticism levelled at Christianity's manifold moral ambiguities - but enough of all that!

A wonderful film to sink into every few years not only for the story but also the gleaming photography, the visual composition of the scene near the end where Yen is brewing the tea of the title is so achingly beautiful that it brings the tears to my eyes as I think about it! But remember it was made in 1932 so if you don't like shiny charming creakers it's probably not your cup of tea.

This film was made before Hollywood strengthened the censorship code. The sexual chemistry between Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther really amazed me! Director Frank Capra filled his story with strong overtones and suggestive dialogue. Very entertaining.