Exotic tales about the East in American film are not based so much on reality as much as they describe an American frame of mind – the fears, racial prejudices and a collective consciousness. This is also the case for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in which Capra takes this peculiar film genre to a strangely noble level. This admirable orchestration of fear and racial prejudices is set in a studio version of China. The bride of a missionary is captured by the cruel and mysterious General Yen during the upheaval of the war just a few hours before the wedding. The terrifying General Yen gradually becomes the young bride’s object of desire in a series of events that blurs the line between dreams and reality. General Yen, played by Swedish actor Nils Asther, is both a grotesque beast and – in the dream – a savior and tender lover in a world that is never to be. He gives his heart and soul; he does not care at all about fame, money or the country. He dies in the arms of the woman of his dreams right when she – the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck – is about to offer her virginity to him. It is a fairy tale à la Capra, and the film would go on to be a strange double bill with the utopia of Lost Horizons, which was released a couple of years later. The film was not very successful at the boxoffice – Capra claims in his biography – because the idea of love between a white woman and a Chinese man was too much for the British, who censored it. According to the director “…the film was thirty years ahead of its time…”, and the only other thing we could say about this film – which was chosen for the opening of the Radio City Music Hall – is that it is one of the best films of Capra’s long career.

Peter von Bagh