The Good Earth (1937)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Based on Pearl S. Buck's epic tome, the lyrical tale chronicles the couple's changing fortunes as they survive famine and revolution, only to be tested again by avarice, lust and Mother Nature. Karl Freund picked up an Academy Award for his first-rate cinematography.
- Actors:
- Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch, Charley Grapewin, Jessie Ralph, Soo Yong, Keye Luke, Roland Lui, Suzanna Kim, Ching Wah Lee, Harold Huber, Olaf Hytten, William Law, Mary Wong
- Directors:
- Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming
- Writers:
- Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger
- Others:
- Karl Freund, Basil Wrangell
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- Oscar Nominations Competition 2024, Oscars: Winners & Losers, Top Films of 1968
- Awards:
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Reviews (1) of The Good Earth
Historical epic. - The Good Earth review by Steve
Film historians routinely tell us that during the Great Depression audiences turned to screwball comedy and musicals for diversion. Sure they did, but they also made hits out of The Grapes of Wrath and Pearl Buck's epic of Chinese feudal poverty, The Good Earth.
It's the story of a woman sold into slavery as a child during a famine and her struggle to endure a proud husband, a hostile environment and an oppressive aristocracy. Luise Rainer gives one of the most moving of all cinema performances as O-lan, a pragmatic, brutalised, determined survivor. Paul Muni is most convincing as her vain, impulsive husband.
The film is a huge spectacle, with vast scenes of revolution. The people are chattels, owned by the rich, and destitute women suffer most of all because they are possessed by their husbands. Wealth is hoarded by the few and the poor are blown about by the winds of history just as the locusts are by capricious thermals.
It's a long, slow film but hypnotic. The realism is a little horrifying at times, like the period when the family survives by eating earth and Wang sifts the soil for roots. There is also a suggestion that O-lan kills one of her babies. There is a little hope at the climax, but it's the incredible hardship and hunger that linger in the mind.