THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN: Blu-ray re-issue (Columbia, 1933) Sony Home Entertainment

During Hollywood’s golden age, ostensibly, there was only one way a studio could affirm its faith in a burgeoning director; give him an ‘A’-list project to helm with a lot of money, time, effort and star power thrown into the mix. This ‘sink or swim’ trial by fire proved successful for the most part, and helped to promote many a burgeoning artist painting with light, though, in hindsight, only a handful achieved their ‘rock star’ status with the public. One such case was Frank Capra, whose threads for the common man have never been surpassed, and, in whom Columbia Studios’ mogul, Harry Cohn had the utmost faith. Retrospectively, we can now see that Capra was the right director for the Depression-era. Despite an initial fallow period, where Capra struggled to find work, once afforded the opportunity to do his best, he was never again to rest on his laurels, directing eighteen middling features for Columbia in just five short years, beginning with 1928’s silent, That Certain Thing. With each stride, Capra’s craftsmanship evolved, enough for Cohn to entrust him with 1933’s plush-mounted, The Bitter Tea of General Yen. It’s a curious picture to say the least– not simply for its pre-code miscegenation between western bride-to-be, Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) and her far east Asian captor, the eponymous title character, rather crudely rendered by costar, Nils Asther, but also, given Capra’s predilection for telling stories usually driven by male protagonists in a contemporary American setting.

Stanwyck’s sturdiness as the soap-scrubbed missionary, forced to grow up fast and face her own erotic attraction to this vial, yet curiously empathetic potentate, lends the tale its ballast as an important movie in the pantheon of conflicted male/female relationships, set against the backdrop of larger-than-life civil unrest; precisely the cloth from which director, David Lean would later create his own cinematic legacy. However, this is not entirely Capra’s bag, and he reveals, intermittently, an awkwardness to infuse scenes with a genuine feeling for any of these characters, intermittently latching onto Stanwyck’s screen magnetism as a means of realigning his own creative equilibrium and propel this fairly lumbering screenplay, cobbled together by Edward E. Paramore (from a story idea by Grace Zaring Stone, dripping in platitudes), from one maudlin plot point to the next.  A lot of movies today forget their central focus is not to provide the audience with a ‘teachable moment’; rather, to entertain by filling up our leisure. If a point is made it ought to arise almost as an afterthought; the pill coated in sugar, not force-fed. The Bitter Tea of General Yen desperately wants to ‘explain’ too much about the social inequalities forever separating east from west. But the ‘message’ gets in the way of the entertainment. Yen is a man; Meg – a woman. Their cultural divide is based on a mutual contempt for one another’s moral character - her, brittle Victorianism pitted against his, unabashed sensual-ness without incrimination.  

I adore Barbara Stanwyck – and not only for her screen characterizations, and perhaps, even more for her monumentally kind heart and hallmarks of personal integrity she held steadfast to and exhibited towards all throughout her illustrious career. Few toiling in Hollywood were as philanthropic with their time and money; fewer still, as genuine and magnanimous in their desire to promote and see others succeed. Alas, Stanwyck’s screen persona is distinctly at odds with the perpetually tear-stained, occasionally blubbering and self-appointed keeper of the flame in this movie. Stanwyck’s best moments herein come from an almost Anna Leonowens-ish position of smug Western superiority against Yen’s autocratic authority. She challenges his right to keep her a prisoner in his palace and even more incredulously implores him to spare the life of his treasonous concubine, Mah-Li (Toshia Mori), suspected of an affair with Capt. Li (Richard Loo). Here, Stanwyck exudes a sort of tempered authority, exercising humility and compassion to melt away the General’s austerity. It’s a Stanwyck tour de force and it all but rescues the picture from its otherwise platitude-stricken plot. Were that The Bitter Tea of General Yen had a male counterpoint equal to the task of sparring with Stanwyck’s Meg.

Today, the name Nils Anton Alfhild Asther has been all but forgotten, brushed aside in the Hollywood folklore dominated by unicorns and legends of a more prominent ilk. But in his day, the Swedish-born actor achieved some notoriety for his stark handsomeness as ‘the male Garbo’. Despite appearing in over 70 movies, 16 made during the silent era, where he played opposite such luminescent female stars as Pola Negri, Marion Davies, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, Asther was basically black-balled in Hollywood from 1935 to 1940 after an alleged breach of contract. It did not help matters he was also a closeted homosexual. Working in Britain during those years, Hollywood eventually ‘forgave’ him his separation, though never his sexuality. Regrettably, his 5-year absence from American movies had irreversibly altered the potency of his box office drawing power and he quickly, and rather quietly, faded into obscurity; finding bit parts in films and later, television.  In hindsight, it is easy to see why Asther never became a celebrated part of the Tinsel Town glitterati. His Swedish accent is oft cited for this. But actually, it’s the theatricality of his screen presence that did him in. Heavily pancaked to conceal his European good looks, in The Bitter Tea of General Yen Asther is not only barely recognizable to his fans, but as stiff as a petrified stick of kindling. He does not emote or even react to Stanwyck’s Meg so much as one can sense in him a pensive anticipation for his next cue to speak. When he does it is with painfully elongated verbalization, oft punctuated by pregnant pauses that neither augment nor stimulate the conversation; merely, inserting dead air Capra is powerless to fill – even with frequent cutaways to Stanwyck’s infinitely more convincing reaction shots.

Set in war-torn 1920’s Shanghai, The Bitter Tea of General Yen ought to have been a better picture. It reveals some great staging Capra would later finesse to far better effect in Lost Horizon (1936), his verve for tight shots of all-out chaos - terrified masses fleeing a fiery night of civil unrest - Capra’s contrast of this sheer panic juxtaposed with the laissez faire idiocy of character actress, Clara Blandick’s Mrs. Jackson, a flighty socialite who cannot conceive what all the fuss is about because she is too self-absorbed in preparations to give Megan the perfect wedding. Alas, it is not to be as Megan’s fiancé, the rather self-righteous Dr. Robert Strike (Gavin Gordon) places his missionary duties ahead of true love. Invested in the cause, mostly because she loves Bob, Meg darts off with her beloved to rescue some missionary orphans, placing herself in harm’s way as General Yen’s marauding forces and the rebels clash in the streets, forcing everyone to flee on foot. On the way, they make a pit stop at the plush headquarters of General Yen, whose authority derives from an over-ambitious American wheeler/dealer, Jones (Walter Connelly) liquidating storehouses to fund Yen’s revolutionary forces, distinctly loyal only to the gold sovereign of the realm.

Robert pleads with the General for a letter of safe conduct. Contemptuous of his missionary zeal, Yen instead provides him with a worthless paper that describes Bob's foolishness. Arriving at St. Andrews’ Mission, Megan and Robert are separated in the exodus of the city and she is knocked unconscious, never to see him again. Awakening some time later, Meg discovers she is aboard Gen. Yen’s private - and fairly luxurious - train, attended by his presumably devoted concubine, Mah-Li (Toshia Mori). Yen is infatuated with Megan from the outset. Indeed, they have already met once before when his chauffeur-driven car ran over her rickshaw boy during the city’s exodus. Then, she offered him her handkerchief to wipe his blood-spattered brow. He coolly refused it. But afterward, these shared impressions linger. Now, as Yen’s ‘prisoner’, Meg is afforded a lavishly appointed suite of rooms in his palace overlooking the left bank where his firing squad daily executes suspected insurrectionists for their crimes against his heavily policed state. Yen makes several veiled advances to win Meg’s trust, virtually all of them turned down. Instead, Meg begins to suffer from a series of erotic dreams, her romantic loyalties chronically shifting from Robert to Yen.

Meanwhile, Mah-Li is observed from Meg’s balcony, tossing slippers with hidden messages to Capt. Li. Naïve, and quite unaware of their significance, Meg is outraged to learn Yen’s discovery of Mah-Li’s ‘affair’ has resulted in his executive decision to put her to death (shades of the Tuptim scandal from Anna and the King of Siam/The King and I). Mistaken in her loyalties, Meg begs for Mah-Li’s life and is eventually granted ‘custody’ of the girl, much to the perturbed Jones’ exacerbation. Jones has toiled night and day to raise 6-million dollars in support of Yen’s cause to rule over Shanghai.  Under the strictest of confidences, Jones informs Yen of the boxcar location of this formidable surplus.  As Mah-Li is under Meg’s custody, she begs to be taken to a nearby temple, presumably for daily prayer. Actually, the girl is using the temple as a prearranged meeting place where she can pass along information about Yen’s future plans to Capt. Li. Armed with the latest info Li and his rebels stages a daring nighttime ambush on Yen’s heavily guarded stockpile. Yen’s men are completely decimated and the money stolen to fund the other side.

Alerted by Jones, miraculously to have survived, Yen is unmoved, even as Meg, realizing her complicity in the crime, confesses it to him. As Mah-Li has fled with Capt. Li into the night, Yen discovers he is quite alone in his palace, his guards and servants, informed of the these shifting alliances, all abandoned him now. Yen prepares a poisonous cocktail - a bitter tea, as it were - to end his suffering. His surrender is as acrid to Meg who, after briefly considering her departure from the palace with Jones for good, instead makes a ‘last ditch’ attempt to seduce her captor as his concubine. Discovering Yen in his throne room alone, she kneels, tends to his every comfort with a pillow and blanket, and begs forgiveness. She loves him dearly. Recognizing love has come too late for them both, Yen quietly sips his lethal tea and dies while Meg whimpers at his side. Sometime later, Meg and Jones are seen on a clipper bound for Shanghai. Uncharacteristically whimsical, Jones asserts the tragedy of the General’s short life, comforting a solitary and silent Meg by suggesting she will be reunited with him in another life.

The Bitter Tea of General Yen holds the dubious honor of being the first motion picture to open at Radio City Music Hall. Alas, abysmal box office forced the theater to yank it from circulation after only eight days, against $80,000 in losses incurred from its initial two-week pre-booked engagement. In later years, Barbara Stanwyck would go on record to suggest the poor turnout was largely due to racist backlash, the British Board of Censors actually requiring harsh cuts before the picture could be shown abroad. Columbia shelved The Bitter Tea of General Yen after 1933. As remarkable as it may seem, even a planned reissue in 1950 was quashed when the Production Code Administration found certain characterizations ‘highly questionable’ and insisted the moment when Stanwyck offers herself to Yen as a concubine be stricken from the print. To Harry Cohn’s credit, rather than butcher Capra’s hard-achieved efforts, he merely canceled his plans for the re-release altogether. Even taking into account the varied points of interest; racial/sexual/political/cultural, etc. et al, The Bitter Tea of General Yen remains rather weak-kneed second-tier Capra-corn, lavishly appointed, but slavishly mired in a sort of wordy, rather than worldly treatise that misplaces the big ‘E’ of its entertainment value behind the many ‘messages’ it muddles through for heavy-handed making its points.  Capra has done his best here, but the results do not live up to his blood, sweat and tears, nor even those, less than affectingly, shed by our heart-sore protagonist. The rhetoric gets in the way of the pseudo-sexual/political affirmations. That the more puritanical American public of 1932 found the picture’s interracial sexual attraction off-putting is forgivable. But for a host of other reasons, The Bitter Tea of General Yen is forgettable at its worst, and marginally of cultural interest as merely a relic from another time, rather than a cultural touchstone for the ages.

Sony has had a change of heart, rescuing The Bitter Tea of General Yen on Blu-ray after prematurely retiring their Sony’s ‘Choice Collection’ MOD-BRD franchise. From a remastering perspective, this one has always lived up to Sony’s high standards with very minor caveats. The B&W image is remarkably sharp with virtually no apparent age-related damage. Contrast is satisfying on the whole with rich black levels and very pristine whites. As not everything has survived from original camera negatives, dupes have been inserted and bear the stigma of inconsistent contrast and a far thicker grain.  Joseph Walker’s cinematography gorgeously filtered through gauze to lend an air of exoticism, positively shimmers. Also, the last fifteen minutes suffer from some horrendous gate weave and sprocket damage. I cannot imagine there are no digital tools available today that would have at least tempered, if not eliminated these anomalies. But there it is. The 2.0 mono DTS audio derived from originally flawed Westrex sound recordings has been adequately preserved and sounds fairly good with obvious shortcomings factored into the inherent limitations of its vintage. Again, NO extras. Bottom line: for Capra completionists, The Bitter Tea of General Yen will be of some interest. Sony’s Blu-ray incarnation is certainly of value. And finally having the movie on a legitimately authored Blu-ray format is a definite uptick from the aforementioned MOD-BRD release. 

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

0