Jessie Ralph | Through the Shattered Lens

(For those following at home, Lisa is attempting to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing 38 films by this Friday. Will she make it? Keep following the site to find out!)

The 1937 film The Good Earth is a strange one.

It’s a big, epic film about life in China in the years before World War I. It opens with a poor farmer named Wang (Paul Muni) marrying a servant girl named O-Lan (Luise Rainer). O-Lan is quiet but strong and, with her support, Wang eventually starts to prosper. He buys land and they have children. Together, Wang and O-Lan manage to survive both famine and a political upheaval. In fact, it’s China’s volatile politics that occasionally allow the family to survive. When a revolutionary mob loots a mansion, O-Lan joins in just long enough to come across a bag of diamonds that the Wang uses to eventually buy the biggest house in town. Once he’s become wealthy and complacent, Wang ends up taking on a younger, second wife (Tilly Losch) and O-Lan finds herself competing for his attention. Ultimately, it’s only when Wang is again forced to tend to the Earth that he understands what is really important.

So, here’s the weird thing about The Good Earth. It’s a film about China. It covers several years of Chinese history and the story itself is rooted in Chinese culture. All of the characters are meant to be Chinese. When the movie was filmed, China was at war with Japan so it’s not surprising that the film was shot in California. But what is interesting (though not really surprising when you consider the history of Hollywood) is that there are very few Chinese people in the cast and none of them play any of the major roles.

Instead, Wang was played by Austria-born, Chicago-raised Paul Muni. O-Lan was played by German Luise Rainer. Wang’s comic relief uncle was played by American character actor Walter Connolly while his father was played by a former vaudeville star from Ohio named Charley Grapewin. All of the actors are heavily made up so that they’ll look Chinese but none of them act or sound Chinese. It makes for a very strange viewing experience.

And it’s a bit unfortunate because there are some very good scenes in The Good Earth. Technically, it’s a very strong film. Towards the end, there’s a locust invasion that is still thrilling to watch. The sets look great. The costumes look great. If you’re a history nerd like me, the story has the potential to be interesting. But, whenever you start to get sucked into the film’s story, Wang starts to speak and sounds totally like a guy from Chicago and it takes you out of the movie. The uneven mix of quality and miscast actors makes for a rather disjointed viewing experience.

As a big epic, it’s probably not surprising that The Good Earth was nominated for best picture. However, it lost to another Paul Muni film, The Life of Emile Zola.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iEREqQjjzU

As I sit here writing this, I’m snowed in, my asthma’s acting up, and our cat is quickly losing patience with me. On the plus side, however, this weather has given me an opportunity to watch some more of the old best picture nominees that I had saved up on my DVR.

For instance, I just finished watching the 1936 best picture nominee, San Francisco.

San Francisco was one of the first disaster films, a film that follows a group of characters as they attempt to survive the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the town of San Francisco. And it has to be said that, nearly 80 years after the film was first released, the climatic earthquake remains effective and scary. San Francisco, of course, was made long before there was any such thing as CGI. Many of the film’s sets were built on special platforms that were designed to shake back and forth, just like in an actual earthquake. When you see walls and buildings collapsing in San Francisco, you know that those walls are breaking apart and collapsing for real and the extras running for their life are literally doing just that. After the earthquake, Clark Gable, as the film’s hero, walks through the ruins of San Francisco with the haunted look of a true survivor. Gable was such a confident actor that it’s still jarring to see him looking overwhelmed.

Unfortunately, before you get to that spectacular earthquake, you have to sit through the rest of the film. It’s a massive understatement to say that the pre-earthquake portion of San Francisco drags. Clark Gable is Blackie Norton, a notorious gambler and saloon keeper. Blackie may be a rogue but he’s a rogue with a heart of gold. His childhood friend, Father Tim (Spencer Tracy), wants Blackie to run for the board of supervisors. Blackie, however, is more interested in Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald), the newest singer at his club.

OH MY GOD, IS THIS WHOLE MOVIE JUST GOING TO BE JEANETTE MacDONALD SINGING!? WHERE'S THE EARTHQUAKE!? #SanFrancisco

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) March 5, 2015

From the minute she first appears to the very end of the film, Jeanette MacDonald is singing. Even when she’s not at the center of the scene, you can often hear her singing in the background. And, after a little while, you just want her to stop singing. But, whenever that happens, she tries to act and you realize that the only thing more boring than Jeanette MacDonald singing is Jeanette MacDonald acting.

Anyway, the film goes through all of the expected melodrama. Blackie wants to reform. Blackie decides not to reform. Father Tim believes that there’s good in Blackie. Father Tim gives up on Blackie. Father Tim decides to give Blackie another chance. Mary loves Blackie. Mary fears Blackie. Mary leaves Blackie. Mary comes back to Blackie. Mary leaves Blackie again. Mary sings. And sings and sings and sings…

But then, just when you’re about to fall asleep, the city starts to shake and all is forgotten in the wake of a natural disaster. Even earthquakes serve a purpose…

San Francisco was a huge box office success. It was nominated for best picture. Somehow, Spencer Tracy received a nomination for best actor, despite the fact that he’s really not that impressive in the film. (His role is primarily a supporting one and he’s consistently overshadowed by Gable.) The only Oscar that San Francisco won was for best sound recording and it must be said that, after all these years, the earthquake still sounds terrifying.

As for the film itself, I’d suggest skipping ahead to the earthquake. That, after all, is the main reason anyone would be watching the film and, by skipping ahead, you’re spared having to sit through an hour and a half of Jeanette MacDonald singing.