The Bitter Tea of General Yen

This picture is on TV pretty often, so often that I usually miss it. The title sounds uninviting, like a dull movie about a tea plantation. Then I saw it on a big screen last month at a film festival and I was astonished. I was especially astonished by Nils Asther's portrayal of the General, and I'm not sure I've seen him in anything else. It was a hypnotic performance, as good a job of acting as has ever been put on the Silver Screen. The film was early Stanwyck but she was as good as ever and, coupled with Asther, they worked magic.

The picture has been reviewed about 50 times now and everyone recaps the plot. It's enough to say it is possibly Capra's best effort. I thought the pace of the film compared to "Lost Horizon", the action and energy of the opening scenes and then the placid unfolding of the main story, which in both cases turns out to be a love story - and then the knockout ending. Also noteworthy are the spectacular sets and the shimmering, immaculate photography. I saw it at Cinevent, Columbus, O., 5/13.

This film was made before Hollywood strengthened the censorship code. The sexual chemistry between Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther really amazed me! Director Frank Capra filled his story with strong overtones and suggestive dialogue. Very entertaining.

Obviously a pre-code film since the subject of attraction between a white woman and an Asian man would be a taboo one for many years once the production code went into effect just after this film was released. Capra creates a mood piece with some compelling and strange imagery helped greatly by the excellent performances of the stars. The film is driven by Barbara Stanwyck, Capra's favorite leading lady and here it is easy to see why, she always delivered intense real work. Nils Asther is all but forgotten today but he really registers with a multifaceted performance. Considering the times in which it was made there may be portrayals which jar a modern viewer but if you are willing to take that into account this is quite an unusual picture.

Following in the same path as Paramount classics, Shanghai Express and The General Died at Dawn, The Bitter Tea Of General Yen is a remarkable film about the chaos that was Kuomintang China. And it had a theme about interracial love that was years ahead of its time. Albeit though it was a love unresolved.

Barbara Stanwyck plays a missionary newly arrived from the USA with the hope of marrying missionary doctor Gavin Gordon. While trying to get some missionary orphans out of the way of war, she falls into the hands of Nils Asther playing the title role.

Unlike Warner Oland in Shanghai Express or Akim Tamiroff in The General Died At Dawn, Asther is an intelligent and articulate man who expresses the Chinese view of life better than was seen on film until Curt Jurgens in The Inn Of Sixth Happiness. He also dares to love the white missionary, but she's otherwise taken with Gavin Gordon. Nevertheless Barbara finds a lot that's intriguing about Asther.

There is a less than flattering view of the white people here, but not the usual criminal lowlifes who profit from war in China. It's the missionaries here with a sense of superior culture that comes in for criticism. Highly unusual and way ahead of its time for a movie theme. In fact Walter Connolly who works for Asther in procuring arms for his troops is a far better observer of the Oriental mind than any of the missionary people.

There is a subplot in The Bitter Tea Of General Yen very similar to The King And I. One of Asther's many concubines is Toshia Mori who really loves one of his officers, Richard Loo. Asther reacts the same way Yul Brynner did when Tuptim found him so non-appealing, a question of vanity and pride more than of the heart.

The interracial theme and the ideas way ahead of their time did not augur well for The Bitter Tea Of General Yen. I think it can be better appreciated by today's audience than the audience of 1933.

Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther star in "The Bitter Tea of General Yen," a 1933 film also starring Walter Connelly and Toshia Mori.

Stanwyck plays missionary Megan Davis who comes to China during their civil war in order to marry another missionary, Dr. Strike (Gavin Gordon). Before they can be married, they have to save orphans left in an orphanage some distance from Snanghai. While there, the couple get separated, and Megan ends up a guest of a General Yen, whom she had actually met earlier. She also meets his mistress, Mah-Li (Mori), with whom she becomes close. General Yen is attracted to Megan, and she to him -- both attracted and repelled -- and when Mah-Li is accused of selling secrets to the enemy, Megan begs that her life be spared.

This is such an unusual film for Frank Capra, and such an unusual film, period. It was banned in England because of miscegenation, even though the main characters are actually played by white people, Nils Asther being Swedish. This is precode, and the Hayes code really clamped down in the U.S. Anna May Wong was problematic casting for The Good Earth and Dragon Seed, and therefore wasn't cast, because she could not appear opposite a white man. Featuring an interracial couple, even if they were playing the same race, likely would mean the movie would be rejected by many theater chains in regions in which anti-Asian prejudice was particularly severe. The new Motion Picture Production Code of 1934, pandering to segregationists, forbade filmmakers from portraying miscegenation in a positive light. Casting a Chinese-American opposite a Caucasian might be construed as promoting miscegenation.

The film is very atmospheric, sexually charged, and beautifully acted by the leads. It was particularly a tour de force for Asther, though his career eventually fizzled. Walter Connelly plays a different kind of character, a tough American siding with General Yen.

Well worth seeing for its place in history as well as for Stanwyck and Asther.