The Good Earth (1937)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Inspired by a Pearl S. Buck novel, this inspiring drama follows the many ups and downs in the lives of Chinese farmers Wang Lung (Paul Muni) and O-Lan (Luise Rainer). Though the couple initially finds success farming their land, their fortunes decline, and lean times follow. Later, when Wang Lung and O-Lan once again reap bountiful harvests and raise a family, the presence of the beautiful young Lotus (Tilly Losch) complicates their lives further.
- Actors:
- Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch, Charley Grapewin, Jessie Ralph, Soo Yong, Keye Luke, Roland Lui, Suzanna Kim, Ching Wah Lee, Harold Huber, Olaf Hytten, William Law, Mary Wong
- Directors:
- Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, Gustav Machatý, Sam Wood
- Producers:
- Irving Thalberg
- Writers:
- Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, Claudine West, Pearl S. Buck, Frances Marion
- Others:
- Karl Freund, Basil Wrangell
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- Award Winners, Oscar Nominations Competition 2024, Oscars: Winners & Losers, Top 10 Films By Year, Top Films of 1968
- Awards:
More like The Good Earth
Reviews (1) of The Good Earth
Historical epic. - The Good Earth review by Steve
Film historians routinely tell us that during the Great Depression, audiences turned to screwball comedy and musicals for diversion. Sure they did, but they also made hits out of The Grapes of Wrath and this, Pearl Buck's huge epic of Chinese feudal poverty.
It's the story of a woman sold into slavery as a child during a famine and her struggle to endure a proud husband, a hostile environment and an oppressive aristocracy. Luise Rainer gives one of the most moving of all cinema performances as a pragmatic, brutalised, determined survivor. Paul Muni is convincing as her vain, impulsive husband.
This is a huge spectacle, with vast scenes of revolution. The people are chattels, owned by the rich, and destitute women suffer most of all because they are possessed by their husbands. Wealth is hoarded by the few and the poor are blown about by the winds of history just as the deadly locusts are by capricious thermals.
It is long and slow, but hypnotic. The realism is horrifying at times, like the period when the family survives by eating earth and the husband sifts the soil for roots. There is also a suggestion that the wife kills one of her babies. There is a little hope at the climax. It's the incredible hardship and hunger that linger in the mind.