SYNOPSIS: Captain Fisby (Glenn Ford) is sent by Colonel Purdy (Paul Ford) to an Okinawan village to aid its recovery and welfare. He is accompanied by an interpreter (Marlon Brando). Fisby is showered with gifts from the villagers. Amongst the gifts is a geisha girl (Machiko Kyo). (In pronouncing, render Japanese names as sharply and gutter-ally as possible. Thus: Marchy/core, with the word snapped off extra fast).
NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck on 15 October 1953 and ran a colossal 1,027 performances, making it one of the fifty most successful plays ever produced on Broadway. A long way from Fiddler On the Roof's 3,242 performances or Life With Father's 3,224, but a highly commendable achievement nonetheless. Adding spice to the success, the play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (The judges were particularly finicky that year too, making no award at all for Fiction, though Charles Lindbergh took the Biography prize for his Spirit of St Louis). The play also won the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Play of the Year. It was inevitable that it should spawn a film version, a musical — Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen (1970) — and even a surprisingly short-lived Broadway revival of a miserable 14 performances in November 1956 starring Gig Young.
With a domestic film rentals gross of $5.7 million, "Teahouse" came in 6th at the U.S./Canadian box-office for 1957. The movie achieved exactly the same position in Australia, but in the U.K. failed to make the top ten list of money-spinners.
COMMENT: A riot on the stage, but something less on the screen. The players try too hard, particularly Paul Ford, here recapping his stage role. (Louis Calhern was originally cast, but suffered a fatal heart attack whilst on location in Japan). Although Marlon Brando was a popular choice for Sakini, I would have preferred Broadway's David Wayne. Still Brando's portrait, viewed in 2016, doesn't seem quite as outrageous or ridiculous as it did 60 years ago.
Robert Lewis directed the Broadway show. For the movie we're stuck with the considerably less talented Daniel Mann. Not only is his handling over-emphatic, he seems totally unable to judge when a jest is exhausted. A joke or comic situation, mild to begin with, is often elasticized way past boredom point. And though his training ground was the stage, Mann makes surprisingly little use of the width available to him on the CinemaScope screen. If this is an example of his method of staging with all the action crowded into the center, we wonder why he didn't face an actors' revolution. (Stage players are very fussy about "blocking". A director is continually forced to find all sorts of reasons, excuses and pretexts to string his actors out from one end of the stage to the other so that the audience has a good view of each performer).
But stay with it, folks. Despite the initial lack of promise, things do improve when Eddie Albert (of all people) comes on. Often a rather dull yet too earnest actor, Albert gives here a wonderfully relaxed, thoroughly professional performance that even overwhelms the dead hand of Mann's tepid direction. Albert's enthusiasm even infects some of the other players. Paul Ford is occasionally amusing, despite all the exaggerated bluster, and Henry "Harry" Morgan briefly shines. Miss Kyo, however, remains stubbornly giggly, if attractively decorative, but little else. As for Glenn Ford in the John Forsythe role, well Glenn Ford in comedy mode is Glenn Ford in comedy mode, period.
Although John Patrick himself penned the screenplay, on film Teahouse seems much less pointed, much less amusing than on stage or in print. Even Alton's grainy CinemaScope photography falls disappointingly short of his usual standards.
SUMMING UP: The opening twenty minutes or so of "Teahouse of the August Moon" promise great things. An American Army officer (Glenn Ford) is sent to establish the recovery and welfare of an Okinawan village, with a rascally Japanese interpreter (Marlon Brando) as an assistant. Alas, great things do not happen. Brando is woefully miscast.
NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck on 15 October 1953 and ran a colossal 1,027 performances, making it one of the fifty most successful plays ever produced on Broadway. A long way from Fiddler On the Roof's 3,242 performances or Life With Father's 3,224, but a highly commendable achievement nonetheless. Adding spice to the success, the play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (The judges were particularly finicky that year too, making no award at all for Fiction, though Charles Lindbergh took the Biography prize for his Spirit of St Louis). The play also won the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Play of the Year. It was inevitable that it should spawn a film version, a musical — Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen (1970) — and even a surprisingly short-lived Broadway revival of a miserable 14 performances in November 1956 starring Gig Young.
With a domestic film rentals gross of $5.7 million, "Teahouse" came in 6th at the U.S./Canadian box-office for 1957. The movie achieved exactly the same position in Australia, but in the U.K. failed to make the top ten list of money-spinners.
COMMENT: A riot on the stage, but something less on the screen. The players try too hard, particularly Paul Ford, here recapping his stage role. (Louis Calhern was originally cast, but suffered a fatal heart attack whilst on location in Japan). Although Marlon Brando was a popular choice for Sakini, I would have preferred Broadway's David Wayne. Still Brando's portrait, viewed in 2016, doesn't seem quite as outrageous or ridiculous as it did 60 years ago.
Robert Lewis directed the Broadway show. For the movie we're stuck with the considerably less talented Daniel Mann. Not only is his handling over-emphatic, he seems totally unable to judge when a jest is exhausted. A joke or comic situation, mild to begin with, is often elasticized way past boredom point. And though his training ground was the stage, Mann makes surprisingly little use of the width available to him on the CinemaScope screen. If this is an example of his method of staging with all the action crowded into the center, we wonder why he didn't face an actors' revolution. (Stage players are very fussy about "blocking". A director is continually forced to find all sorts of reasons, excuses and pretexts to string his actors out from one end of the stage to the other so that the audience has a good view of each performer).
But stay with it, folks. Despite the initial lack of promise, things do improve when Eddie Albert (of all people) comes on. Often a rather dull yet too earnest actor, Albert gives here a wonderfully relaxed, thoroughly professional performance that even overwhelms the dead hand of Mann's tepid direction. Albert's enthusiasm even infects some of the other players. Paul Ford is occasionally amusing, despite all the exaggerated bluster, and Henry "Harry" Morgan briefly shines. Miss Kyo, however, remains stubbornly giggly, if attractively decorative, but little else. As for Glenn Ford in the John Forsythe role, well Glenn Ford in comedy mode is Glenn Ford in comedy mode, period.
Although John Patrick himself penned the screenplay, on film Teahouse seems much less pointed, much less amusing than on stage or in print. Even Alton's grainy CinemaScope photography falls disappointingly short of his usual standards.
SUMMING UP: The opening twenty minutes or so of "Teahouse of the August Moon" promise great things. An American Army officer (Glenn Ford) is sent to establish the recovery and welfare of an Okinawan village, with a rascally Japanese interpreter (Marlon Brando) as an assistant. Alas, great things do not happen. Brando is woefully miscast.