Die gute Erde (1937)

Die gute Erde: Directed by Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, Gustav Machatý, Sam Wood. With Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch. Although married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus.

“This is a bit long (2 hours, 20 minutes) but it had a a lot of the famous Pearl Buck novel in it. In other words, a lot of ground to cover.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt was soap-operish at times but had some visually dramatic moments, too, capped off by a locust attack at the end of the film. That was astounding to view. Considering this film is about 70 years old, the special-effects crew on this film did a spectacular job.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003ePaul Muni and Luise Rainer were award-winning actors in their day and they donu0026#39;t disappoint here, both giving powerful performances. The only problem is credibility as all the Asians are played by Caucasions and some of them, like Walter Connolly, just donu0026#39;t look real. Iu0026#39;d like to see a re-make of this movie with all-Asian actors, not for PC reasons but to simply make the story look and sound more credible.”