TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON

US, 1956, 123 minutes, Colour.
Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford, Machiko Kyo, Eddie Albert, Paul Ford, Harry Morgan.
Directed by Daniel Mann.

The Teahouse of the August Moon is the film where Marlon Brando is disguised as a Japanese interpreter. It is a comic role, very different from his serious roles in such films as On the Waterfront or A Streetcar Named Desire. Brando was expanding his range at this period of his career and appeared the year before singing and dancing in Guys and Dolls.

The film was based on the play by John Patrick (The Hasty Heart as well as screenplays for Love is a Many-Splendored? Thing, Les Girls). It was directed by Daniel Mann, a prolific director in the 1950s who led Shirley Booth to an Oscar in Come Back Little Sheba, Anna Magnani in The Rose Tattoo and Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8.

The film is set a year after the end of World War Two and is a satire on the Americans and their plans to change their world, introduce democracy – no matter what. Sent to supervise the rehabilitation of Okinawa after the war, Commander Glenn Ford wants to build a school. However, the inhabitants want a teahouse, more in keeping with their customs. Ford is genial (despite the authorities sending a psychiatrist to help him out) and forms a friendship with Marlon Brando as Sakini, the translator.

The film is probably entertaining in retrospect not so much in terms of the post-war period but as a critique of Americans’ self-importance as well as their ambitions to change the world in the American image.

1. How appealing a comedy was this? Why? The quality of the humour, the quality of the personalities and situations, the gentle wisdom that was offered?

2. The film was based on a stage play. Was this evident? In the staging, the reliance on dialogue for impact, the development or non-development of the situations? The device of having Sakini, introduce and end the film? How successful was this latter device? Why?

3. How strongly did the film rely on its colour, Cinemascope, scenery, musical background, Japanese atmosphere?

4. How did the film rely on its success for audience response to World War Two situations, to the Japanese, to American occupation and to Americans themselves? What would the response have been in the mid-fifties? later? How enjoyable is the film now in view of changed attitudes?

5. How successful was the film as satire on two cultures? The general satire on Japanese culture, Okinawa culture and on American culture?

6. How attractive was the presentation of the Okinawans? Sakili? Introduction and explanation of their philosophy of life? Their continually being occupied and culturised? Their ability to talk and organize? The qualities of politeness, offering gifts, manners? The role of the geisha girls and the misunderstandings of Americans about them? The nature of a Teahouse? Their response to being conquered, and the irony of their attitudes towards the Americans? What insight into the chaxacter of the Okinawans did the film give? (Or do you think that this was a Hollywood concoction of what the Japanese are like?)

7. What view did the film take of Americans and their culture? Brash and comical figures? Conquerors and occupiers? Naive idealism? Imposing American ideals, manners, know-how and riches on the occupied? Loyalty to Washington and politics? Did the Americans come off worse than the Japanese in terms of satire?

8. How attractive a character was Sakini? The quality of Marlon Brando's performance and humour? Sakini and his human touches? The satire and irony implicit in his comments and behaviour? His role in the plot? His controlling the people in the village and supporting the Americans?

9. How did he contrast with Fisby? Fisby as a good man but a bungler? Living by the book but changing because of Sakini and the Okinawans? As able to undergo a 'humanising' process? The fact that he was conquered by the Okinawans? Was he right to ignore the book and its Americanism and do what the people wanted? Why? How successful a comedy figure in the film was he? Glenn Ford's performance? Comic situations and farce, much shouting?

10. How humorous was the satire on Purdie? The typical American? His platitudes? His comic behaviour and orders? Making the wrong decisions, the success of Paul Ford*s comedy performance?

11. How interesting was the character of McLean? As a psychiatrist, as a gardener, as undergoing the same process as Fisby?

12. The attraction of Lotus Blossom? Her behaviour in other villages? Ruining American plans? Fulfilling American plans? Was she a conventional enough character? The other Japanese in the village?

13. How well did the film show the enterprise of 1945 and 46? Did it seem real? Is this what happened in those days? What should have happened?

14. How might the film have been better? Less emphasis on the farcical? Less shouting? Less stagebound?