The Teahouse of the August Moon
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| The Teahouse of the August Moon | |
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 original film poster |
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| Directed by | Daniel Mann |
| Produced by | Jack Cummings |
| Written by | John Patrick, Vern J. Sneider |
| Starring | Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford, Machiko Kyô, Paul Ford |
| Distributed by | MGM |
| Release date(s) | December 1956 (USA) |
| Running time | 123 min |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Teahouse of the August Moon is a 1956 motion picture comedy satirizing the U.S. occupation of Japan following the end of World War II. It starred Glenn Ford and Marlon Brando. John Patrick adapted the screenplay from his own Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning Broadway play of 1953. The play was, in turn, adapted from a 1951 novel by Vern J. Sneider.
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[edit] Plot summary
Misfit Captain Fisby (Glenn Ford) is sent to Americanise the village of Tobiki on Okinawa. His commanding officer, Colonel Wainwright Purdy III (Paul Ford), assigns him a wily local, Sakini (Marlon Brando), to act as interpreter.
Fisby tries to implement the military's plans, by encouraging the villagers to build a school (in the shape of a pentagon), but they want to build a teahouse instead. Fisby gradually becomes assimilated to the local customs and mores with the help of Sakini and Lotus Blossom, a young geisha (Machiko Kyô).
To revive the economy, he has the Okinawans manufacture small items to sell as souvenirs, but nobody wants to buy them. Then Fisby makes a happy discovery. The villagers brew a potent alcoholic beverage in a matter of days, which finds a ready market in the American army. With the influx of money, the teahouse is built in next to no time.
When Purdy sends psychiatrist Captain McLean (Eddie Albert) to check up on Fisby, the newcomer is quickly won over. (In a foreshadowing of Albert's later role on Green Acres, he proves to be enthusiastic about organic farming.) When Purdy doesn't hear from either officer, he shows up in person and surprises Fisby (in a bathrobe as an improvised kimono) and McLean (in a yukata), leading a rowdy song at a party in full swing in the teahouse. Despite Purdy's anger, in a deus ex machina, the village is chosen by the SCAP as an example of successful democratisation.
[edit] Production
Playing the role of a Japanese villager from Okinawa was to prove a challenge for Marlon Brando's method acting techniques. He spent two months studying local culture, speech and gestures.
The role of Colonel Wainwright Purdy III was to have been played by Louis Calhern, but he died in Tokyo during filming, and was replaced by Paul Ford.
[edit] Cultural impact
Conventionally, the film stands firmly within the genre of official goes native stories such as Local Hero. A stuffy bureaucrat is sent to resolve a perceived problem in a community but becomes socialised into a more permissive way of life. When the official's superiors come to audit him, conflicts in values are exposed with results comic or tragic. Perhaps Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is the prototype of such tales.
However, in the occupation of Japan, the US were aiming to nurture democracy, respect for human rights and liberal values. The occupation had seen not only reconstruction but also the trial and execution of those held responsible for war crimes. With the occupation only ended in 1952, the subject ought to feel like an odd one for a light popular comedy. Moreover, the Japanese people are cast in a humane and civilised, if somewhat patronising, light alongside the officious and bureaucratic Americans. [N.B. For Tobiki's villagers and the people of Okinawa generally, the Japanese had clearly been an occupying force, and a far less welcome one than the Americans. This is made very clear in the film. "When Japanese come, they say (they're here to help us), then take everything." The author of this entry confuses Okinawa and Japan here. The satire of American occupation activities holds either way, however.]
Two speeches from the film serve to illustrate how the viewer is meant to perceive the Okinawan people, and by extension, the Japanese whose culture they initially had forced on them, then adopted. Sakini gives an accurate summary of what a geisha's work involves, and old Mr. Oshira gives a poetic description of what it means to the villagers to have a tea house.
The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Motion Picture Promoting International Understanding but by the 1970s, cultural idiosyncrasies and pronunciation struggles had ceased to be a subject of fun. A 1971 musical version of the play (Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen) flopped.
[edit] Quotes
- Sakini: "Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable."
- Sakini: "Socks up, boss!"
- Sakini: "Poor men like to feel rich. Rich men like to feel wise. Sad men like to feel happy, so all go to geisha house and tell troubles to geisha girl. Now, she listen very politely. She say ohhhh, that's too bad, boss. She very pretty. She make tea, and she sing, and she dance, boss -- pretty soon, troubles go away, boss! So, that's not worth something, boss?"
