The Good Earth: A Review

THE GOOD EARTH

Confucius, I doubt, would say that The Good Earth was right in how it was cast. Now hampered by yellowface, The Good Earth is barely passable despite itself.

Simple Chinese farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni) is excited and anxious. Today is his wedding day, but he has yet to meet the bride. It is off to the Great House, where he comes to collect his new bride. She is O-Lan (Luise Rainer), a simple slave girl. She is simple, humble and a willing partner for Wang.

Soon, she provides a son, the first of three children. Wang manages to start buying up property, convinced that there is wealth in the good earth. He is initially right, as China is experiencing prosperity and good weather. However, soon drought comes to their world. Wang comes close to selling his land, but O-Lan quietly talks him out of it. Instead, the Lung family along with Wang's Uncle (Walter Connolly) go to the big city in the south to look for work and food.

The Lung family struggles to keep body and soul together. They are forced to resort to stealing, begging and taking the jobs of dead people to scrape together an existence. They, however, also have the gods smile on them in this dark hour. They learn that the rains have returned to their area. A revolution also unwittingly helps them. O-Lan gets caught up in the storming of a mansion. Though she is not a willing participant, she spots a bag of diamonds that can provide badly needed funds. She barely escapes with her life when the troops sent in to restore order and shoot looters are recalled before they search her.

Now, the Lung family is restored to fortune. Wang Lung has grown so wealthy that he can afford to send his two sons to university. He can also fall prey to the temptress Lotus (Tilly Losch). This erotic dancer has bewitched Wang so much that he does something he had never contemplated. He takes her as his second wife. He, however, does not need to divorce his first wife. O-Lan meekly goes along with this, though she mourns having to surrender her beloved pearls to Number Two Wife.

Number Two Wife, however, finds Number Two Son (Roland Liu) a tasty morsel. He does his best to resist his stepmother's siren call, but he eventually succumbs. Will Wang Lung disown his Second Son after the liaison is revealed? Will the Elder Son (Keye Luke) and O-Lan be a bridge between them? Will the locust destroy the Lung fortune and way of life?

Even for 1937 the casting in The Good Earth should have been seen as downright scandalous. The characters of Wang Lung and O-Lan are simple Chinese peasants. Who are cast in those parts? A Hungarian and an Austrian. 

It is already bad enough that neither Paul Muni nor Luise Rainer spoke English as their first language. Muni started his career in Yiddish theater. Luise Rainer had made several German-language films before being essentially imported to America as a potential successor to Greta Garbo. Almost ninety years on, seeing these two Europeans valiantly, perhaps foolishly, trying to pass themselves off as Asian is still troubling.

The yellowface in The Good Earth cannot be ignored. It should not be downplayed. However, is it possible to look at Muni and Rainer's performances stripped away from the decision to cast European actors for Asian roles? I think it can be based on this. The Good Earth gave the characters a dignity and nobility that was probably in short supply with Asian, specifically Chinese, roles. Wang Lung and O-Lan were for the most part good people. They cared about each other. They cared about their family. They cared about the land. 

I would put the overall positive portrayal of Wang and O-Lan on the original Pearl Buck novel versus any forethought by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer Studios. I found that Muni and Rainer were not horrendous in The Good Earth. I think that has to do less with their acting skills than with the roles themselves.

Muni gets a chance to play Wang Lung as a complex figure. He can be jolly. He can be desperate. He can be wise and foolish. Muni does give Wang Lung a complexity and dignity. This is a man who will work to keep what he has. Yes, it is still inexcusable that a non-Asian is playing an Asian. In a just world, Sessue Hayakawa would have been better suited for the role. Yes, he was Japanese, so a Hayakawa casting might still be a bit dubious. However, at least the film would have had an Asian playing an Asian. 

Luise Rainer, however, is another matter entirely. Her casting came about in a most perplexing way. Anna May Wong had lobbied hard for the part of O-Lan. She was Chinese. She had a respected film career. She, unlike Rainer, grew up speaking English and was American by both birth and custom. However, Wong lost out the lead in part of the miscegenation laws at the time. These laws prohibited interracial romances between Caucasians and non-Caucasians. Since the German Paul Muni was playing Wang Lung, it seems that the studio thought having Anna May Wong play his wife would violate said miscegenation laws.

I find that line of thinking idiotic. It would not be a romantic relationship between Muni and Wong. It would be a romantic relationship between Wang Lung and O-Lan. You, in a manner of speaking, would have two Asians involved, not a white and Asian. Moreover, in a bizarre twist, Walter Connolly's Uncle was paired with Soo Yong as Aunt. Yong was Asian, playing an Asian and in a cinematic marriage to a white actor in yellowface. The thinking behind the contradictory casting (no to Wong because Muni is white but yes to Yong despite Connolly being white) is so oddball.

It makes things more awful when one learns that Wong was offered another part. Instead of the heroine O-Lan, Anna May Wong was offered the smaller role of the villainous temptress Lotus. That part went to Tilly Losch, who like Rainer was Austrian. Now things get more muddled if downright loony. The rationale against casting Anna May Wong, a Chinese American, as a Chinese character was that her costar, who was playing a Chinese character, was white. However, she was instead offered a part where she still would have ended up having a torrid romance with not one but two Asian characters. Yet, I digress.

It, in retrospect, might have been difficult for Anna May Wong to play O-Lan, but for a surprising reason. Wong was seen as a glamorous screen figure. Could she have been convincing as a simple, humble, meek peasant girl?

I think Anna May Wong would have been far more believable than Luise Rainer separate from the yellowface. Luise Rainer, to be fair, does not embarrass herself in The Good Earth the way that she did in The Great Ziegfeld. In the latter, Rainer's Anna Held was all fluttery to where I thought that Held was genuinely stupid. Here, Rainer was the complete opposite. She was meek, silent, spending much time looking down and downcast. I do not think that characters have suffered the way that Luise Rainer's O-Lan has. 

That impression of range might be why Luise Rainer won Best Actress for The Good Earth. She earned a place in Oscar history as the first person to win consecutive acting Academy Awards. Luise Rainer went the complete opposite of Anna Held. In The Good Earth, her O-Lan rarely looked up. She was meek and weak, forever downcast. Looking at her performance now, I think she was better than she was in The Great Ziegfeld. At least she was on screen longer to justify, somewhat, a Best Actress nomination. I still think it is not a good performance overall. It is her stillness that becomes frustrating. You struggle to think that O-Lan as played by Luise Rainer would have the inner courage to sacrifice her child or the family ox. You struggle believing that within O-Lan there is a bit of iron. Instead, her passivity, her eternal acceptance of all sorts of indignities, makes for sometimes frustrating viewing. 

As a side note, I think that is another reason why Anna May Wong might not have been the best person for the part. You would not think that Anna May Wong would be as docile and weak as Luise Rainer was as O-Lan.

The Good Earth at least allows for some authentic Asians in Asian roles. I can only wonder what Roland Liu and Keye Luke must have thought in seeing Muni and Rainer play their parents. Liu in particular was good as the Younger Son. He was deeply troubled by Lotus' wiles, desperate to get away from her. However, circumstances forced them together to near-ruinous results.

One thing that The Good Earth cannot be criticized for is its cinematography, the second of its Oscar wins and of the film's five nominations. There are some beautiful visual moments in the film thanks to Karl Freund's camera work. The concluding locust attack is still wildly impressive, as is a storm early in the film.

The Good Earth is probably mostly remembered for Luise Rainer's consecutive Best Actress win. This is not the time to comment on whether she should have won. It is not the time to suggest which of her fellow Best Actress nominees should have, though she beat out Irene Dunne, Greta Garbo and Barbara Stanwyck, all of whom never won competitive Oscars. The film is a bit stodgy and slow, most likely due to it being seen as a prestige production. However, The Good Earth has barely enough to make it passable viewing. This is something that in the right hands might be worth a remake.

Said remake would at least afford a chance for correct casting. 

DECISION: C+