THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 946, 27 September 1957, Page 22

THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON

(M.G.M.) G Cert. ACCORDING to the author of the very first Teahouse-for it was a novel before it was either a play or a film-it was meant to make you think if you wish to think, and to forget if you wish to forget. I don’t think anyone will quarrel with an intention as good as that; and while, in the event, most people-and, I should think, great numbers of people-will be mainly entertained by Teahouse in CinemaScope (director Daniel Mann), there is, as

they say, food for thought in it if that is what you want. Whatever way you look at it, this is a delightful film. The setting, as you may know better than I did, is Okinawa, where an American occupation force is setting about teaching democracy to the conqueredor is it the liberated?-even, as Colonel Wainwright Purdy III puts it, if hey have to shoot everyone in doing it. Well, don’t take fright-there’s no shooting. Instead, Captain Fisby (Glenn Ford), who has set off to. get a schoolhouse built in the village of Tobiki, finds himself won over to the Japanese way of life, or at any rate its more agreeable aspects. Going native, he has a teahouse built. Although "Glenn Ford is the central character in Teahouse, and displays a quite agreeable comic talent, it is dominated, if that is the word, by Marlon

Brando. Mr Brando adds immensely to what we already knew of his range as an actor with a performance of great intelligence, good humour and charm, as Sakini, an interpreter attached to Fisby. I didn’t see him in Guys and Dolls, but those who know only his earlier films will be pleasantly surprised by this one. Machiko Kyo, who has been seen in this country only in Gate of Hell, makes a memorable debut (incidentally, she can’t speak English) as Lotus Blossom, the geisha girl who, with Sakini’s help, makes Fisby see the light; and among others Paul Ford and Eddie Albert are delightfully amusing — Paul Ford as the Colonel, and Eddie Albert as the psychiatrist sent to examine Fisby, who is soon in deep water himself. Besides its charm and humour, Teahouse is notable as an American film that in a mild, agreeable way makes fun of the American way of life and of the efforts of Americans to persuade Orientals to adopt it. I imagine a few solemn people with one-track minds may be just a little upset that in doing so it shows the Japanese way of life as in some respects more civilised, and certainly more graceful, than our own. But I don’t ‘think that will keep many people away from a film they can be sure they will enjoy so much.

BAROMETER FAIR TO FINE: "The Teahouse of the August Moon.’ FAIR: "Jubal." OVERCAST: "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes."’