In 1900 David Belasco opened a one act play at the Herald Square Theatre on Broadway for a successful month's run. It was based in turn on an 1898 short story of the same name by John Luther Long. Thus was MADAME BUTTERFLY born. With the United States having recently entered the world stage with Commodore Perry's "opening" of the long self-isolated Japan in 1854 and the establishment of a pseudo-empire of its own with the protectorates (former colonies) taken from Spain after the war with her in 1898, the play was nothing if not timely.
The melodrama hit an emotional chord not only in the United States but around the world; in Italy in 1904, Giacomo Puccini used the story (and some scholars suggest actual events in Nagasaki in the late 1800's) for his opera MADAME BUTTERFLY, which has become a world-wide perennial. The opera has even been staged on Broadway five times from 1918 to 1948 - which becomes significant when one sees how well the themes from the opera are used in this film version.
The underlying story is dismissed by some today as racist for the Japanese lead's subservient devotion to her American semi-husband, but Belasco was looking at the relationship of U.S. personnel and unfamiliar cultures - not through the "enlightened" eyes of the 21st Century, but the eyes of a parochial nation just emerging from its own informal isolation, and Butterfly herself, in the screenplay by Josephine Lovett and Joseph Moncure March (famous for his "Wild Party" poem), justifies herself quite well.
Director Marion Gering was well respected in his day but all but forgotten today; a reputation depressed by the length of his career, not the quality of his work, and MADAME BUTTERFLY is some of his best work. Paramount regularly used him for quality work and especially for their star Sylvia Sidney, guiding most of her films from 1931 to 1934. He beautifully balanced the story in which - even in 1932 - the American junior officer, Pinkerton, does not come across particularly well, abandoning Butterfly in the second half as he does. Giving the devoted Butterfly her full due, Gering, through co-star Cary Grant, lets the audience see what she saw in her Pinkerton and gives Pinkerton some real regret and guilt over his treatment of his "temporary wife." It is a fine performance from the young Cary Grant, already growing in stature from his performance earlier that year for the same director in the Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper film DEVIL AND THE DEEP, which introduced Charles Laughton to American audiences. In fact, Gering would pair Grant and Sidney once again for THE THIRTY DAY PRINCESS in 1934.
The incorporation of themes from the Puccini opera as background music heightening the emotions is beautifully done - most notably during Butterfly's all night vigil the night she expects her Pinkerton to return and during their final confrontation.
Those only familiar with the opera will note minor plot differences (Butterfly's final act itself was eliminated in the 1915 silent film with Mary Pickford; here its motivation is changed!), but overall this is a solid, still entertaining presentation of an important, touching play which holds heightened interest because of the world famous opera drawn from it.
It's mildly criminal that the lovely film (the settings and cinematography, after some stock opening shots of Japanese scenery, holds up far better than many of its compatriots from 1932 - the view of the harbor with the American fleet from Butterfly's window is spectacular) is not yet available for general audiences on DVD; a must see for any opera lover or Cary Grant fan (note that the song Grant sings to his Butterfly just before leaving for his new assignment is cut from some prints in circulation - presumably for time and rights issues rather than the quality of his singing, which is at least marginal), and a revelatory performance from Ms. Sidney.
The melodrama hit an emotional chord not only in the United States but around the world; in Italy in 1904, Giacomo Puccini used the story (and some scholars suggest actual events in Nagasaki in the late 1800's) for his opera MADAME BUTTERFLY, which has become a world-wide perennial. The opera has even been staged on Broadway five times from 1918 to 1948 - which becomes significant when one sees how well the themes from the opera are used in this film version.
The underlying story is dismissed by some today as racist for the Japanese lead's subservient devotion to her American semi-husband, but Belasco was looking at the relationship of U.S. personnel and unfamiliar cultures - not through the "enlightened" eyes of the 21st Century, but the eyes of a parochial nation just emerging from its own informal isolation, and Butterfly herself, in the screenplay by Josephine Lovett and Joseph Moncure March (famous for his "Wild Party" poem), justifies herself quite well.
Director Marion Gering was well respected in his day but all but forgotten today; a reputation depressed by the length of his career, not the quality of his work, and MADAME BUTTERFLY is some of his best work. Paramount regularly used him for quality work and especially for their star Sylvia Sidney, guiding most of her films from 1931 to 1934. He beautifully balanced the story in which - even in 1932 - the American junior officer, Pinkerton, does not come across particularly well, abandoning Butterfly in the second half as he does. Giving the devoted Butterfly her full due, Gering, through co-star Cary Grant, lets the audience see what she saw in her Pinkerton and gives Pinkerton some real regret and guilt over his treatment of his "temporary wife." It is a fine performance from the young Cary Grant, already growing in stature from his performance earlier that year for the same director in the Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper film DEVIL AND THE DEEP, which introduced Charles Laughton to American audiences. In fact, Gering would pair Grant and Sidney once again for THE THIRTY DAY PRINCESS in 1934.
The incorporation of themes from the Puccini opera as background music heightening the emotions is beautifully done - most notably during Butterfly's all night vigil the night she expects her Pinkerton to return and during their final confrontation.
Those only familiar with the opera will note minor plot differences (Butterfly's final act itself was eliminated in the 1915 silent film with Mary Pickford; here its motivation is changed!), but overall this is a solid, still entertaining presentation of an important, touching play which holds heightened interest because of the world famous opera drawn from it.
It's mildly criminal that the lovely film (the settings and cinematography, after some stock opening shots of Japanese scenery, holds up far better than many of its compatriots from 1932 - the view of the harbor with the American fleet from Butterfly's window is spectacular) is not yet available for general audiences on DVD; a must see for any opera lover or Cary Grant fan (note that the song Grant sings to his Butterfly just before leaving for his new assignment is cut from some prints in circulation - presumably for time and rights issues rather than the quality of his singing, which is at least marginal), and a revelatory performance from Ms. Sidney.