The Bitter Tea of General Yen

Thanks to Sony-Columbia's expert and systematic restoration of his work, the rediscovery of Capra's early films continues with this untypical melodrama, set in war-torn China and suffused with eroticism and ponderings on Eastern philosophy.

By his own admission, Capra was going for his first Oscar: "I would make the artiest film they ever saw... To me it was Art with a capital A." The Oscar would have to wait (to be more than made up for by the grand slam he got for It Happened One Night), but the result is an intriguing addition to Hollywood's occasional flirtations with the Far East, given sharper focus at the time by the sympathy and interest aroused by Japan's invasion of China.

Barbara Stanwyck is a missionary's fiancée, captured by Chinese warlord Nils Asther, her initial hostility towards him turning to more complex emotions under the spell of his ambiguous oriental charms: 'Beauty and the Beast' by any other name. A curious by-product of the film's ambivalence towards missionary work (according to David Shipman in The Story of Cinema) was its being banned throughout the British Empire.

Clyde Jeavons

How a motion picture is made, featuring The Bitter Tea of General Yen.

Clyde Jeavons