The Good Earth

Directed by Sidney Franklin for MGM, this film adapts Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer winning novel, following the arranged marriage of the farmer Wang Lung and O-Lan, a former house slave, across years in pre First World War northern China. The couple work their way to prosperity, are driven to the brink by drought and famine and flee south, then return wealthy enough to buy the Great House itself, only for Wang Lung to become infatuated with a tea house dancer and neglect O-Lan. The film's racial politics are what draw most discussion now: the producers initially considered an all Chinese cast but concluded American audiences were not ready, and because censorship rules barred interracial romance, casting a white actor in the lead forced his wife to be played by a white actress too. Anna May Wong had campaigned for O-Lan since the novel appeared; she was offered instead the one unsympathetic role in the film and refused, in a reply that entered the record: you are asking me, with Chinese blood, to play the only unsympathetic role in a picture featuring an all American cast portraying Chinese characters. Producer Irving Thalberg died at thirty seven just after shooting wrapped, and this became the only film to carry his name on screen as producer. Who it's for: Anyone drawn to classic Hollywood epics and curious about the racial politics of the studio system. Who it's not for: Not for viewers troubled by Asian characters played by white actors, since this is among the most prominent examples of the practice.