Le barbare et la geisha

If you were to make a real film about Townsend Harris, the first American diplomat in Japan, the guy you would have cast in the role was Clifton Webb. The real Harris was an aesthete like Webb's persona on screen, never married, might have been gay as Webb was. Now that would have been an interesting film.

But done the way John Huston did it, with Harris as a romantic figure, Tyrone Power would have been perfect casting. I have a gut feeling that since 20th Century Fox produced this, the property might have been at one time meant for Power. Wayne looked so awkward and ridiculous mouthing those romantic lines that Ty Power could have done in his sleep.

John Huston said that in casting John Wayne he was trying to show a clash of cultures, Tokugawa Japan being opened to the west by the young vibrant, expanding America and Huston saw Wayne as the personification of 19th century America. Well it didn't work. Supposedly both men developed a hearty dislike of the other.

I will say this though, it's a spectacularly photographed film and it does show quite accurately the Japan that Townsend Harris was dealing with.

But it was still one of the big duds for the Duke's career.

A Hollywood mini-epic that is more about the barbarian's political strategies than the geisha's sensual art. In fact, though John Wayne was the right choice for the role of Townsend Harris, the first US consul general in Japan, he looks awkward as a romantic lead, especially besides sleek Eiko Ando as the geisha. Huston handled the Japanese aspects of the story in a reverent fashion; the film even begs for subtitles, since he let the Japanese perform considerable portions of dialogue in their native language. As Wayne –perhaps for different reasons- Huston must have felt attracted to the colonialist side of the story, but although it's known that Fox reshot scenes and re-edited the film, there wasn't much to do with a script concealing the expansionist interest in breaking Japan isolationism behind the Consul General's demagogy. A recommended curio.

In THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA, John Wayne plays Townsend Harris, a real envoy from the United States who was responsible for truly opening up Japan to International relations in the late 1850s. Before him, Commodore Perry basically pushed into Japan with gunboats and forced a treaty upon the Japanese in 1853. Harris, who arrived just a bit later, worked through the details and helped ensure compliance--as many of the Japanese felt no particular inclination to honor the first treaty. All this is true and shown in the film. According to some other sources I found, the romance between Harris and a Japanese Geisha is mostly fiction and this romance is much of the focus of this film (hence, the title).

My first reaction the first time I saw this movie was one of surprise. John Wayne as a diplomat?! When he's being diplomatic in most films, he says please and thank you as he pummels people!!!! So seeing him playing a man who is NOT a man of action and is able to play the diplomatic game seemed very odd indeed. In fact, I can't think of too many actors in 1958 who would have been more unusual for this role. By the way, I've seen photos of Harris and Wayne has practically no resemblance to him at all.

However, despite the story taking a lot of liberties with the truth and the strange casting, the film is still very watchable. The color cinematography is nice, the film shows some nice insights into Japanese customs and culture and the acting isn't bad. All in all, a likable and watchable film despite it's odd casting.

PS--Read through the trivia for this film. You find out a bit more about the real life characters as well as a supposed fight between Wayne and the director (John Huston) where Wayne apparently knocked him out!! Based on what I've read about Huston and the way he got along with actors, this is an incident I tend to believe. And, it's also a nice example of John Wayne "diplomacy".

When you consider that this movie was made only 13 years after the end of the war in the Pacific, with its brutality and carnage, it is quite surprising to see that the "The Barbarian and the Geisha" tries to to present the clash of cultures, 100 years earlier, with such apparent equity and fairness.

While some may see John Wayne as the archetypical posterboy for American jingoism, in fact his character clearly tries to understand the country in which he is trying to establish the consulate, and shows genuine remorse, not arrogance, in noting that in early part of his assignment, all that the Americans had established was a cholera epidemic and the torching of the city to quell it.

While the interracial love story behind the title was somewhat superficial, I thought that the more important aspects of colliding cultures and political shadowboxing was quite interesting and well presented.

An interesting look at Japan prior to opening to the West. John Wayne as America's first consul to Japan arrives in accordance with agreements resulting from Perry's gunboat diplomacy. He is not welcome. Wayne eventually wins his meeting with the Shogun after bring a cholera epidemic, introduced by an American ship, under control. There follows a colorful procession to the capital bearing gifts for the Shogun, including a bottle of Old Tanglefoot. The meeting with the Shogun, the debates among the Japanese nobles and an assassination during an archery exhibit present an interesting look at the politics of the period. Altogether a rather enjoyable movie and besides how often do you get to see the Duke lose a fight to a guy half his size.