#The Bitter Tea of General Yen

[summertimenoir]

Barbara Stanwyck in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932)

[leatherhearted]

Toshia Mori in THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1933, dir. Frank Capra)

[byneddiedingo]

Nils Asther and Barbara Stanwyck in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1932)

Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Walter Connolly, Toshia Mori, Gavin Gordon, Lucien Littlefield, Richard Loo, Helen Jerome Eddy, Emmett Corrigan. Screenplay: Edward E. Paramore Jr., based on a novel by Grace Zaring Stone. Cinematography: Joseph Walker. Film editing: Edward Curtiss. Music: E. Franke Harling. 

Maybe the best way to approach a movie like The Bitter Tea of General Yen today is to think of it as science fiction: a story taking place on a distant planet called t'Chaï-nah. Think of the heroine, Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) as coming from Earth to a planet torn by civil war, seeking out her fiancé, an astronaut tasked with bringing a message of peace. Captured by the forces supporting General Yen (Nils Asther), she discovers all manner of intrigue involving the beautiful Mah-Li (Toshia Mori), one of the general's servants, and Mah-Li's lover, Captain Li (Richard Loo), as well as some exploitative dealing by her fellow Earthling, a man named Jones (Walter Connolly), the general's financial adviser. Megan finds herself strangely drawn to the alien general, despite the prohibition against interplanetary sexual relations. That way we might be able to set aside our objections to the ethnic stereotypes, the yellowface makeup of the Swedish actor playing the title role, the chop suey chinoiserie of its design and costumes, and the nonsensical taboo against "miscegenation." Because Frank Capra's film has a core of good sense and solid drama to it that almost, but not quite, overcomes the routinely racist attitudes of the time when it was made. It has good performances by its leads, some lively action scenes, and a leavening of sardonic humor provided by Connolly's Jones, who admits that he's "what's known in the dime novels as a renegade. And a darn good one at that." It also demonstrates that Capra was a pretty good director when he wasn't indulging in the sentimental populism that his most famous movies bog down in.  

[cranialgunk]

Bitter Tea

Recently Turner Classic Movies played The Good Earth and The Bitter Tea of General Yen back to back. I caught the former as the locusts descended upon the crops and continued to the latter as a “Chinked up” Nils Asther rode away in “Yellow Face” without care or concern for the rickshaw driver his car had just hit. I grimaced as I watched Nils Asther’s exaggerated Yellow Face – painfully narrowed…

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Francine Everett (Dirtie Girtie from Harlem U.S.A., Paradise in Harlem)— she wasn't known as 'the most beautiful women in harlem' for nothing. star of many an all-black film. not to mention one of her raised eyebrows eviscerates me

Toshia Mori (The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Blondie Johnson)—i think Toshia Mori is a great example of someone who clearly had the makings and charisma of a star & who its easy to imagine thriving in a less white supremacist system than 20s and 30s hollywood. she began acting in silent movies in the late 20s, and in 1932 was selected as a "WAMPAS Baby Star" which was an annual promotion of promising up-and-coming young actresses by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, becoming the first Asian woman to do so. previous baby stars included Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and Joan Blondell, and another 1932 honoree was Ginger Rogers. this likely led to her most sizeable role in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (unfortunately a movie with a lot of orientalism going on and white actors in yellowface). she was well received but the studio seemed to lose interest in her career and she largely continued to get bit parts; her last appearance was in a Charlie Chan movie in 1937. she deserved better!!

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Toshia Mori:

Francine Everett:

Harlem beauty with charisma out the wazoo, never had as big of a Hollywood career as she should have because she refused to take demeaning or stereotyped roles.

[northmountainpost]

To Sadren the Poet... do you enjoy a good beverage? What kind? Would you be open to grabbing one with a fan some time? (Return address is stated to be :just throw it bottled inta the ocean)

My friend,

What they don’t tell you about immortality is that your body forgets how to want. You won’t notice what you’ve become numb to until it’s too late. You will go months without eating or drinking and wonder why the things that once brought you joy have emptied themselves of meaning. My friends in the younger generation tell me that this is called “depression.” When I learned this, it came to me all at once, as if in a dream—why the gods of my ancestors slaughtered one another, why Old Mora chases disaster, why the Io must have their tyrannical heart devoured each summer. None of them have had a fruity drink in what I imagine to be hundreds of years.

It’s perverse, and wrong, and I won’t stand for it. I am a hedonistic street-rat at heart and I believe this is my only moral calling. The moment god forgets the taste of honey mesquite is the moment god decides all other creatures are meaningless noise. What awful delusions we suffer when eternity stares us down!

I am writing to you now while nursing a glass of non-alcoholic cidrecane. Addiction precludes me from the drink. I’m aware of the irony. After reading what I have written, my boyfriend sampled my cup and said “This is just apricot cider,” and then advised me to send this letter “without the diatribe,” which means that I will send it as it is.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I enjoy a little bit of everything. My latest vice is vaatlil, a fizzy juice of berries, bitters, and caribou blood that comes from West Scaiuq. This is what they serve foreigners who can’t keep pure caribou blood down. It’s delicious, but even still I can’t drink much, because I have the “thin stomach of a farmer” in the words of my boyfriend. (I’m not young anymore. After my last brush with lichen cheese, I know better than to try to prove my “Sarikote-ness” to him.) 

When I’m in the city, molchi and cha yen satisfy my sweet tooth. Herbal teas satisfy my need to seem sophisticated. I also enjoy coffee and maté, but I rarely drink them, as they cause me to become very stupid. I am now being teased because I drink “disgustingly sweet mocktails that would stop the hearts of lesser men.” This is untrue. I have made myself ill before and I will make myself ill again. “Spoken like a true masochist.” Can a man not write a letter without the dawn chorus crowing about his inability to distinguish love from pain?

I digress. These days I am spending more time on the East Coast, where I grew up. Many things have not survived these past hundred years, and what hasn’t died is doomed to meet a more mediocre end. My favorite teahouse, for example, serves a tepid mockery of what I drank in my youth. Nahe. I miss it, but only a little. This is the other thing they don’t tell you about immortality—what grows in spring is watered by your winter tears, and it will be sweeter than you remember. I never had Sati-Xanti food until an elderly couple opened a bodega at the end of the street. They serve a miawe-flavored molchi that would make me forgive Motu.

You must come visit sometime and try it. (The molchi, not forgiving Motu.)

[citizenscreen]

Frank Capra’s THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, starring Barbara Stanwyck, opened across the U.S. 90 years ago today. #OnThisDay

[summertimenoir]

Barbara Stanwyck in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932)

[oskarlevant]

Barbara Stanwyck in 'Screen Snapshots' (1933)

Barbara Stanwyck is featured in a short film about Hollywood movie production, which shows her in the movie The Bitter Tea of General Yen, directed by Frank Capra. Also contains behind the scenes footage of Columbia Studios.

[arte-e-homoerotismo]

Nils Asther

Nils Anton Alfhild Asther (17 de janeiro de 1897 – 19 de outubro de 1981) foi um ator sueco ativo em Hollywood de 1926 a meados da década de 1950, conhecido como "o Greta Garbo masculino ". Entre 1916 e 1963, ele apareceu em mais de setenta longas-metragens, dezesseis dos quais foram produzidos na era do cinema mudo . Ele é lembrado principalmente hoje por dois filmes mudos - The Single Standard e Wild Orchids - que ele fez com a colega sueca Greta Garbo , e sua interpretação do personagem-título no controverso filme pré-Code Frank Capra The Bitter Tea of ​​General Yen .

Homossexualidade

Asther era homossexual em uma época em que era um estigma social perigoso , tanto pessoal quanto profissionalmente. Ele cresceu em um lar luterano profundamente religioso, acreditando que a homossexualidade era um pecado e a sociedade via a homossexualidade como uma doença. Na Suécia, era chamada de "fornicação não natural". Embora as relações sexuais entre adultos do mesmo sexo tenham sido legalizadas em 1944, a classificação médica da homossexualidade como uma forma de transtorno mental continuou até 1979. 

A comunidade teatral e a indústria cinematográfica na década de 1920 aceitaram atores gays com poucas reservas, sempre desde que permanecessem discretos sobre sua orientação sexual e não houvesse nenhuma sugestão pública de impropriedade. Asther era enrustido. Ele propôs casamento a Greta Garbo para esconder a verdadeira natureza de sua orientação sexual. Asther e Garbo se conheceram na Suécia e, por serem relativamente novos em uma terra estrangeira, passaram muito tempo juntos. Eles costumavam visitar o rancho de um amigo fora de Hollywood, onde podiam relaxar, andar a cavalo, escalar ou nadar no Lago Arrowhead . "Marinheiro" era um termo preferido para os amigos gays/bissexuais de Greta Garbo. Em 1929, durante as filmagens em Catalina The Single Standard com Nils Asther, ela foi ouvida repreendendo o ator por agarrá-la tão rudemente. "Eu não sou um dos seus marinheiros", ela o lembrou.

Existem rumores desde o início da década de 1930 de que Nils teve relacionamentos com o diretor sueco Mauritz Stiller e o escritor sueco Hjalmar Bergman e com outros colegas homens. Asther menciona um pouco disso em suas memórias. Ele teve um relacionamento de longo prazo com o ator/dublê e marinheiro da Marinha da Segunda Guerra Mundial Ken DuMain. De acordo com Ken DuMain, ele conheceu Asther na Hollywood Boulevard no início da década de 1940, e eles tiveram um relacionamento de longo prazo.

Em agosto de 1930, Nils entrou em um casamento lavanda com Vivian Duncan , uma de suas colegas de elenco de Topsy e Eva . Eles tiveram uma filha, Evelyn Asther Duncan, apelidada na mídia como "o bebê internacional" devido ao seu pai sueco, mãe americana e nascimento bávaro. A nacionalidade de sua filha foi debatida, e Asther se ofereceu para solicitar a cidadania americana se isso ajudasse no processo de levar sua filha para a América. Desde o início, o casamento de Asther e Duncan provou ser tempestuoso e se tornou assunto para os tabloides. Eles se divorciaram em 1932.

Memórias

As memórias de Asther foram publicadas postumamente em sueco. O livro foi elaborado com um prefácio do historiador de teatro Uno "Myggan" Ericson, que conheceu Asther apenas uma vez, quando chegou a Gotemburgo em 1958. O posfácio foi escrito por Iwo Wiklander. O meio do livro, escrito por Asther, cobre os anos entre seu nascimento e seu retorno à Suécia em 1958. Iwo Wiklander afirmou em entrevistas posteriores que Nils Asther tinha a intenção de apagar partes de sua vida antes de sua morte, e que muito material em sua autobiografia foi exagerado - ou completamente inventado - para fazer uma história mais interessante. A condessa Linde Klinckowström-von Rosen afirmou que seu "noivado" foi uma brincadeira enquanto filmavam juntos. No entanto, ela apresentou Nils à sua família e ao pintor sueco Nils Dardel e seu círculo artístico livre-pensador. 

Morte e legado

Nils Asther morreu em 13 de outubro de 1981, em um hospital em Farsta , Estocolmo. Ele está enterrado em Hotagen, Jämtland .

Em 1960, Asther foi introduzido na Calçada da Fama de Hollywood como uma estrela de cinema no 6705 Hollywood Boulevard por suas contribuições à indústria cinematográfica.

Nils Asther, Swedish Actor, 1920’s silent film star.

[fizzingwizard]

I am sick!! Surprising no one.

Happy thing today - I discovered a new brand of iced milk tea in the vending machine outside my apartment. It costs only 100 yen (a lot of drinks that used to be 100 yen have shot up to 110, 120, 130 this year) and it's a normal amount of drink inside. With milk tea it's often too sweet for me, but this one is really nice! Just lightly sweet and very fragrant. I bet it will taste great when it's heated up in fall too. Cheap, tasty, and nearby... yess I can be happy as long as it continues to be stocked, lol x'D coincidentally i watched a vid today where a person was on a business class JAL flight and ordered royal milk tea, the same kind that comes in a can in vending machines for 150 yen, only it cost 300 of course because you're drinking it on an airplane!! lmao

now work stuff!

It's been a pretty uggghhh September. I had a lot on my plate, and then I got bad news that my work partner, the only person on staff with me at the school over the past four years who didn't quit last spring, is going to quit in October. Not only is she going to quit, but the company doesn't have a replacement for her... I'm really upset, not with her for quitting, because if anything she's smarter than me for taking the plunge lol, but because I'm going to be left with just my 19-year-old newbie coworker and a random rotation of subs who aren't always even teachers themselves for some indefinite amount of time, with a class of 20 two and three year olds. And the company has been pretending the understaffing is a problem caused by so many people quitting at once - as if we hadn't been understaffed for years, and as if the reasons those employees chose to quit were nothing to do with how the company treated them... -.-'

So, to be honest, although I've said it in the past I've reached a point where it's more true when I say I really am job hunting again. It's a struggle, because no matter how bad things get here, I do genuinely enjoy working with very young children. I don't mind changing diapers and I don't mind tantrums and I've learned so much, I feel, about people in general from observing how different and how thoughtful my students are. I think it's a pretty sweet deal to work somewhere you can get constant hugs, play pretend, and celebrate holidays as part of your work. There are a lot of stressors as well, but they all go away when I see my kids.

But I'm so frustrated with the company. An entire staff quits (technically two requested transfers, a third was just transferred because reasons, and two stayed on as subs with the intention of quitting, one of whom has already done so - but everyone else besides me and my co-teacher genuinely quit) and their reaction is "they're a clique who did this on purpose to harm the company." Instead of "what did we do which drove away these hard-working, kind, experienced teachers who daily went above and beyond both for their students and for their coworkers?" Like. I'm not saying no mistakes were made by anyone. I just think it's ridiculous that the small mistakes that were made were treated so harshly, while little to no recognition, let alone help, was given for the very real issues we were handling. Everyone was a hard worker who I relied on and enjoyed working with. I'm not a slacker. But many of my coworkers worked even harder than me. And the company just did nothing to try to keep them. Also, that one teacher I mentioned who was transferred for mysterious "reasons" - I'm really bitter about that now because obviously we needed her here! If she wasn't against leaving, why did they make her?? She was transferred nearby (to a school that did also have some staffing issues but nowhere near as bad as ours) and is often at our school anyway filling in because there are no subs :) So dumb.

I'm especially concerned about my co-teacher quitting because as I said, my other co-teacher is only 19. She's great, but she can't help that she's young and new. And not only do I have a large class of 20 mostly still two-year-olds, but I have several emotionally challenging ones who need a lot of one-on-one attention. It's not just about how tiring it is, it's also about safety. If I'm the only experienced teacher, and I have to rely on my newbie co-teacher and some random third person who doesn't know the routine or the kids, that opens the door to so many problems. I'm the one who knows how to handle those emotionally-challenging kids. (Side note: at the start of the year I was told that my class was getting most of the challenging kids because my co-teacher has some kind of specific child development certification that made her the best choice of teacher for them. But... she is quitting... so... lol) But then I can't lead the rest of the class when they're having meltdowns. My co-teacher will have to do that. While she is doing very well, she hasn't found her teacher voice yet. She also doesn't know how to anticipate what kids will do unexpectedly. And she'll be supported by some random person... I don't like it at all. And I feel anything that happens, I will be blamed for. Like, even if I'm not blamed directly, there's a difference between not being directly blamed and getting glowing feedback in your file. The other two-threes class has also been through ups and downs and has as many kids as we do. But at least two of three teachers are experienced and the one new one has been with us almost since the beginning of he school year and isn't fresh out of high school. I just feel afraid my class will fall short and despite the challenges we faced we'll still be compared.

Anyway. Like I said, I'm pretty decided to quit, even though I'm not happy about it. The question is what to do next. Of course I'd love to stay in pre-K. But if I'm quitting anyway, it would be nice to work somewhere I can make more money. I don't know where that would be. It probably won't be education. I feel really at sea right now. I never wanted an office job, I never wanted to work for money, and I'm afraid I'll just hate it. But on the other hand, I do need money. I have savings but not a lot. And my job here is physically demanding to the point that I'm so exhausted every day. I don't get to sit down. For eight hours I'm chasing kids, squatting, lifting, running up and down stairs, carrying baskets, scrubbing floors, setting up and breaking down tables... It gets to be a lot doing it every day, although it's put me in better shape than I was even in college, lol. But I wouldn't mind a break :P and maybe just go to the gym like a normal person, lol.

So I'm looking around but I honestly don't really know what I'm gonna find, if anything, that will suit me and I'll suit it. And I'm not unrealistic about salary either - I'm not expecting to make a ton more than I do now. Just idk, more. We'll see I guess. I really don't want to leave Japan. My options here are limited as a foreigner (if I knew IT or something I'd be a little better off) but my fingers are crossed I'll somehow find a job that pays at least a little higher than what I get now.

Since I'm feeling pretty firm about quitting at the end of my contract, I'm seizing the last of my PTO to take my first trip home since before covid. Haven't bought the tickets yet though. That's gonna hurt ;___; not just the money but last time I looked I couldn't find flights that would get me home in less than 30+ hours... sigh. Fingers crossed there too buhahahha

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Toshia Mori (The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Blondie Johnson)—i think Toshia Mori is a great example of someone who clearly had the makings and charisma of a star & who its easy to imagine thriving in a less white supremacist system than 20s and 30s hollywood. she began acting in silent movies in the late 20s, and in 1932 was selected as a "WAMPAS Baby Star" which was an annual promotion of promising up-and-coming young actresses by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, becoming the first Asian woman to do so. previous baby stars included Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and Joan Blondell, and another 1932 honoree was Ginger Rogers. this likely led to her most sizeable role in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (unfortunately a movie with a lot of orientalism going on and white actors in yellowface). she was well received but the studio seemed to lose interest in her career and she largely continued to get bit parts; her last appearance was in a Charlie Chan movie in 1937. she deserved better!!

Veronica Lake (I Married a Witch, Sullivan's Travels)—her look is so iconic they used her as a visual model for jessica rabbit in who framed roger rabbit and a bunch of other femme fatale types in cartoons and live action alike. i didnt think i liked women and then i saw her in sullivans travels and said gee i hope this doesnt awaken anything in me! every role ive seen her in she absolutely oozes an aura of "i know people would ask me to step on them" and her EYES bro every photo ive looked at for this submission its like shes piercing thru time and space to judge me <3

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Toshia Mori:

Veronica Lake:

Her HAIR, her FIGURE, her VOICE, the way she wore LEATHER AND SANG SONGS FOR NO REASON.

I don't believe there's a person on earth who can watch Veronica Lake in I Married A Witch and not be struck by how gorgeous she is. She had that youthful wonder about her that almost every Hollywood starlet was trying to achieve. Her hairstyle (peekaboo bangs) became an iconic Hollywood style after she popularized it, and made her signature look all the more suggestive. Also, witches are tumblrs favorite!

ICONIC hair sweep

The US government literally begged her to change her hairstyle because it was TOO HOT to handle and women who copied it were getting their hair caught in machinery

Her hairstyle was so iconic and popular that the war department had to come out with a PSA instructing lady ironworkers with ways they could pin their hair up to avoid it getting bound in machinery. [https://veteranlife.com/military-history/veronica-lake/]

She played a lot of femme fatale roles but my favorite is Sullivan’s Travels opposite Joel McRea, which is a comedy. She became famous for her hair style at the time—she wore it long and parted on one side so it would fall over half her face in a very sexy way. They called it a peek-a-boo I think. You’ve definitely seen Bugs Bunny dressed up like her, so I think if she’s being honored in such a way she’s very cool.

look at her

she's GORGEOUS in her little witch outfits that she wore for promos and also in the oversized coats and pajamas she wore throughout the movie...she's got RANGE

My Grandpa supposedly dated her in high school, he drove her to school in his car every day. This is legend in the family.

She has gorgeous hair, has got the smouldering look over the shoulder down PAT, and is just drop-dead gorgeous too!

Schizophrenic icon, popularized the peekaboo hairdo long before Jessica Rabbit

She’s just so prettyyyyy

So much hot in such a tiny package. She was no more than 5 feet tall, and some reports claim as small as 4'9"

If you picture a femme fatale in your head, almost certainly Veronica Lake had a hand in shaping the image you think of. She came to embody the look of the noir leading lady as well as the sound and the performance. Certified Noir Baddie.

[citizenscreen]

Frank Capra could not resist Barbara Stanwyck and it shows in the five pictures they made together.

LADIES OF LEISURE (1930)

THE MIRACLE WOMAN (1931)

FORBIDDEN (1932)

THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1932)

MEET JOHN DOE (1941)

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

Early Sound Honorable Mentions 1928-32

1928: Steamboat Willie (first of 50 Disney shorts through 1962)

1929 (5): Hallelujah -- Hell's Heroes -- Hollywood Revue of 1929 -- Redskin -- Rio Rita

1930 (3): All Quiet on the Western Front -- The Bat Whispers -- Earth

1931 (11): A Nous la Liberte -- Bad Sister -- Cimarron -- City Streets -- A Connecticut Yankee -- Five Star Final -- The Maltese Falcon -- Le Million -- Night Nurse -- Trader Horn -- Way Back Home

1932 (17): Back Street -- The Bitter Tea of General Yen -- Boudu Saved from Drowning -- Companies in Love -- The Crowd Roars -- Devil and the Deep -- End of the Trail -- Grand Hotel -- Haunted Gold -- I Was Born....But -- Kongo -- One Hour with You -- Red Dust -- Sign of the Cross -- Tenderfoot -- Three on a Match -- Tiger Shark

[entrehormigones]