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The Good Earth (1937)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Release Date:
6 August 1937 (USA)
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Tagline:
China . . . . Land of unrest . . . tomorrow they may Starve !
Plot:
The story of a farmer in China: a story of humility and bravery. His father gives Wang Lung a freed slave as wife...
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Awards:
Won 2 Oscars.
Another 3 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(5 articles)
Music: Review:The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms / The Good Earth
(From The AV Club. 14 September 2009, 10:00 PM, PDT)
The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth
(From PasteMagazine. 8 September 2009, 6:00 AM, PDT)
(From The AV Club. 14 September 2009, 10:00 PM, PDT)
The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth
(From PasteMagazine. 8 September 2009, 6:00 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
"O-Lan, You Are the Earth"
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Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Paul Muni | ... | Wang Lung |
 | Luise Rainer | ... | O-Lan |
| Walter Connolly | ... | Uncle |
| Tilly Losch | ... | Lotus |
| Charley Grapewin | ... | Old Father |
| Jessie Ralph | ... | Cuckoo |
| Soo Yong | ... | Aunt |
| Keye Luke | ... | Elder Son |
| Roland Lui | ... | Younger Son |
| Suzanna Kim | ... | Little Fool |
| Ching Wah Lee | ... | Ching |
| Harold Huber | ... | Cousin |
| Olaf Hytten | ... | Liu - Grain Merchant |
| William Law | ... | Gateman |
| Mary Wong | ... | Little Bride |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
138 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Black and White (Sepiatone)
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Sound System)
Certification:
USA:Passed (National Board of Review) |
West Germany:12 |
UK:A |
South Korea:All |
Sweden:15 (DVD rating) |
Australia:G |
Finland:K-16 |
USA:Approved (PCA #2584)
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
For the second year in a row, Luise Rainer won a Best Actress Oscar, becoming the first performer to win two Academy Awards and the first to win two Oscars in two years.
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Goofs:
Continuity: Unexplained sequence of events or possible error in continuity. Toward the beginning of the film, Farmer Wang walks to the Great House to meet his bride, O-Lan. He is carrying a basket. It appears to be empty. As he enters a market, the farmer declines to buy peaches. We don't see him purchase goods or trade for anything. We don't see him filling the basket. However, the next scene shows him at the door of the house with a full basket. Later, he does buy peaches. At this point, however, we're still not made aware how he has money or silver.
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Quotes:
O-Lan:
When I go back in that house, it will be with my son in my arms. I'll have a red coat on him... and red flower trousers... and a hat with a gilded Buddha and tiger-faced shoes, and I'll go into the kitchen where I spent my days as a slave and into the great hall where the old mistress sits with her pipe, and I'll show myself and my son to all of them.
O-Lan: [Smiles, contented] Hmm.
Wang Lung: Well... Now, I... I haven't heard you speak so many words since you came to this house.
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O-Lan: [Smiles, contented] Hmm.
Wang Lung: Well... Now, I... I haven't heard you speak so many words since you came to this house.
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Movie Connections:
Referenced in "M*A*S*H: Love and Marriage (#3.20)" (1975)
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FAQ
How closely does the movie follow the book?Why are there so few real Chinese actors in this very Chinese story?
Who is Irving Grant Thalberg, the person to whom this film is dedicated?
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What Irving Thalberg did in making this film today would never be attempted again. Making a Chinese story with occidental players even if they are of the caliber of Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Charley Grapewin, and Walter Connolly among others.
Perhaps it's partly because the story was written by a westerner, Pearl Buck who got a Pulitzer Prize for her novel in 1932. Ms. Buck, daughter of Chinese missionaries, probably brought China closer to the consciousness of America than any other person. Not the political struggles of China, but the lives and toil of the every day people we find in The Good Earth. Unfortunately later on, Pearl Buck became an apologist for the Kuomintang China of Chiang Kai-Shek in all its virtues and excesses. The rest of her literary output never matched The Good Earth.
In The Sundowners there is a great description of comparing China to Australia by Peter Ustinov. When asked the difference, Ustinov said China was very big and very full and Australia was very big and very empty. That's what you see in The Good Earth, China very big and very full of people, more than she can deal with at times.
The Good Earth tells the story of Wang Lung (Paul Muni) as a young man who purchases a wife from a large house where she was a slave. The woman O-Lan (Luise Rainer) bears him two sons and sees him through all the good times and bad they have, drought, famine, revolution, and a climatic locust plague.
Luise Rainer won the second of two consecutive Oscars for portraying O-Lan. She may have set some kind of record in that it has to be the leading player Oscar performance with the least amount of dialog. Everything she does practically is done with facial expressions, her performance could have been on a silent film with very minimal subtitles. I think only John Mills in Ryan's Daughter had fewer words and he was playing a mentally retarded man.
Muni is not always appreciative of how supportive she is in that male dominated culture. Rainer helps in the field, bears and raises the kids, does the housework. When Muni becomes a man of property he takes a Chinese second trophy wife who causes him a lot of grief. Still Rainer stoically bears it all. Still Muni is not a bad man and it's a tribute to the film and his acting and Buck's writing that you don't hate him and the culture gap is bridged.
We've got a group of oriental players now who do more than just Kung Fu movies. I'm surprised The Good Earth of all films has not been remade at this point. I'll bet the Chinese government would even let some American company do it on an actual location.
Till then we've got this great classic to appreciate and enjoy.