Japanese War Bride

This film begins with a soldier named "Lt. Jim Sterling" (Don Taylor) being sent to a hospital in Japan after being wounded in battle during the Korean War. Once there he meets a nurse by the name of "Tae Shimizu" (Shirley Yamaguichi) and the two fall in love and subsequently get married. Not long afterward, Jim Sterling receives a medical discharge and both he and Tae fly back to his home in California. Yet, even though Jim's parents are delighted to see him, his mother "Harriet Sterling" (Louise Lorimer) isn't nearly as excited to see his new bride. Neither is Jim's new sister-in-law "Fran Sterling" (Marie Windsor) who has long had feelings for Jim and doesn't like the fact that he has recently been married--especially to someone outside of his own race. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film was released during a time when a sizeable number of soldiers stationed in Japan brought home Japanese brides to sometimes hostile receptions. To that extent, this film was somewhat predictable in nature. Fortunately, the rather suspenseful ending makes it worth the view and I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly above average.

The Japanese War Bride (Yamaguchi) marries handsome American Lt. Sterling (Taylor) who takes her to California where she is met with American rudeness, resentment, contempt and outright dislike by his family and friends. She does everything she possibly can to please them and fit in but can't break their rigid barriers. Every character is so well acted, even the unlikable ones, that the discomfort and eventual pain and anguish are very credible as they develop to a crisis leading to the estrangement of the earnest, loving Lt. from his family and property. His lovely wife blames herself for all their problems and this drives a wedge between them. Will he lose the woman he loves so much, as well as his infant son? Viewers will relate to these ordinary Americans and their difficulty in dealing with situations outside of their norm. Beautifully understated but effectively eloquent, this neglected film gem still has as much to say now as it did in 1952. Don't miss this one...Shirley Yamaguchi's and Don Taylor's excellent performances will leave a lasting impression.

This movie is the real goods. It is relevant, subtle, well rounded and believable. The transformation from hopeful expectation for the new couple to awkward circumstances and passive resistance and the resulting series of crises and their resolution are very well handled. The budget is low but the directing and location filming are all well done and a larger budget or heavier use of cinematography are not needed in such a story-dialogue driven film. The cast is not a stellar A-list but is well up to the task. Everyone does well. The title "Japanese War Bride" is simple and perhaps too direct. Maybe that causes people to pass it over. Don't, this is 90 minutes well spent.

Don Taylor marries Shirley Yamaguchi and brings her from Japan to Salinas County in California. No one is happy about that.

A title like that has a definite exploitation feel to it. But this movie was directed by King Vidor. Since silent days, he was in the habit of making a few movies for the studio, and then one for himself. Here he is, making one for himself with his customary visual elegance, tackling anti-Japanese prejudice. By implication he's assailing all sorts of prejudice by attacking those who manifest it. Certainly, Taylor and Miss Yamaguchi are bland enough that there's nothing objectionable about them except that she is Japanese, and they are in love.

But was she Japanese? Well, sort of. She was born to Japanese parents in Manchuria. By the time she was 18, she was starring in Chinese movies as Li Xianglan; these were typically made in Japanese-occupied areas of China, and so reflected the authorities' values. After the war, she moved to Japan. There she became a recording star, and made films as Yoshiko Yamaguchi. In the middle of the 1950s, she appeared in various American movies and on the Red Skelton Show. After 1958 she moved into journalism and politics. She died in 2014 at the age of 94.

As an American married to a Japanese woman this movie really surprised both me and my wife for it's honest depiction of racism in America shortly after WWII. For a Hollywood film of 1952, "Japanese War Bride" is a balanced portrayal of race relations between white Americans and both Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans. It's a hard film to find and the DVD available is a DVD-R, with decent but not great quality. Still, the disc I found is very watchable.

Wounded during his service in the Korean War, American Jim Sterling falls in love with his Japanese nurse, Tae Shimizu, and visits her home in Japan to ask her father for permission to marry. Actually, the film makers never went to Japan. That scene was shot at what is now the Yamashiro Restaurant, in the Hollywood hills, overlooking Grauman's Chinese Theater. But most the story takes place and was shot in Salinas, California.

Upon arriving at the family home with his new bride, Jim is confronted by suppressed and not so suppressed hostilities towards his new bride. Initially, Jim's mother has a hard time relating to Tae, but the good nature of Tae and her desire to win over the appreciation of her husband's mother succeeds. Watching the mother finally open her hardened heart to Tae in a scene where Tae massages her mother-in-law's back, is quite touching, nicely performed by both Shirley Yamaguchi as Tae and Louise Lorimer as mother Sterling.

Marie Winsor, who made a career out of vengeful, hateful women in films like "The Killing" and "The Narrow Margin," excels here in the same kind of role, as Jim's sister-in-law who still holds a torch. Nobody seemed to do these kinds of roles as well as she did.

In fact, the whole cast is good, if a bit obvious and stilted in places, due to the acting style of the day. Nevertheless, the raw emotions people display in this story come across as honest and not forced. Yamaguchi's performance as Tae is easily the most polished and subtle of all the actors. Watching her learn and respond to the various attitudes white America shows her as she struggles to maintain her dignity is beautifully portrayed by Yamaguchi. Clearly, this actress knew quite well what she was portraying.

And Don Taylor as Jim, who may be a bit too vigorous for some, still he comes across as fair-minded and the genuine affection he shows for Tae is heartwarming. Their love scenes evoke a lot of charm. It took many years for Hollywood to show a white male movie star kissing a black actress on screen. it didn't happen until 1971 when Charlton Heston kissed Rosalind Cash in "The Omega Man." Yet, in "Japanese War Bride" there are very many scenes where Don Taylor passionately kisses Shirley Yamaguchi on screen. Although Taylor was not a big star like Heston, this film was clearly ahead of it's time.

My wife told me that a large percentage of the men who married Japanese war brides ended up in divorce, some of the women coming to America to find their husbands already married to white women. Yet, this film does a good job of capturing a shameful period of American history that did exist, and still exists in some places today.

The director, King Vidor, was clearly a romantic, and though many of his films are somewhat dated, they still pull strongly at my own heart strings. As a romantic myself, I respond to his films. "The Crowd," "Bird of Paradise," "Stella Dallas," "Comrade X," "H. M. Pulham, Esq," "Duel in the Sun," and even his less than stellar version of "War and Peace" all have moments that get through to me.

Though the ending is a bit overly dramatic, as a film about relations between Americans and Japanese, "Japanese War Bride" is, in my opinion, superior to and less soapy than 1957's "Sayonara," a much higher profile film. If you're a romantic and can find a copy of "Japanese War Bride," I think you'll be surprised by it's depth and honesty.