If you can handle the ‘de rigeur’ Caucasian casting (Gilbert & Sullivan’s MIKADO is just a whisker away), this remains an impressive, even moving specimen of corporate M-G-M filmmaking. The ups & downs of Chinese peasantry isn't something you expect to come out of Golden Age Hollywood, but the Pearl Buck novel had been a critical and commercial sensation. Luise Rainer bests her previous Oscar laureled perf (she’s still insufferable, but it makes sense here) while Paul Muni, especially in the first half, is astonishingly fine. There’s so much second unit background & action footage, to say nothing of those tasty Slavko Vorkapich montages (famine, locusts, revolution, drought), Sidney Franklin’s stolid megging barely registers, but it sure looks gorgeous under Karl Freund’s lensing. And it’s always something of a fresh shock to see European/Caucasian actors churn out real live Asian tykes. Talk about generational shifts!
No comments:
Post a Comment