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The Good Earth
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1937 film by Victor Fleming, Sidney Franklin, Gustav Machatý
OverviewAI-generated
The Good Earth is a 1937 film based on the novel by Pearl S. Buck, directed by Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, and Gustav Machatý, and produced by Irving Thalberg for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It stars Luise Rainer, Paul Muni, Tilly Losch, and Walter Connolly, with cinematography by Karl Freund and a score by Herbert Stothart, filmed in black-and-white in Los Angeles, Beijing, and Utah. The film won the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, taking 2 Oscars from 4 wins and 3 nominations total. It runs 139 minutes, carried a budget of $2,800,000, and is recognised in the Academy Award Best Actress collection.
Synthesized by Vinony from 44 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, OMDb, IMDb, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
6.3China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the many hardships of life over the years; but the temptations of a fragile prosperity will endanger their love and the survival of their entire family.
Cast
- Paul Muni as Wang
- Luise Rainer as O-Lan
- Walter Connolly as Uncle
- Tilly Losch as Lotus
- Charley Grapewin as Old Father
- Jessie Ralph as Cuckoo
Themes
- husband wife relationship
- china
- based on novel or book
- based on play or musical
- family relationships
- 1910s
- farmer family
- rural life
- yellowface
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Ratings
IMDb
7.5/10
5,504 votes
Rotten Tomatoes
95%
- Year
- 1937
- Runtime
- 138 min
- Genres
- Drama, Romance
- Rated
- Approved
- Awards
- Won 2 Oscars. 4 wins & 3 nominations total
via OMDb · IMDb
Key facts
- Directed by
- Sidney Franklin , Victor Fleming (uncredited), Gustav Machatý (uncredited)
- Screenplay by
- Talbot Jennings , Tess Slesinger , and Claudine West
- Based on
- The Good Earth , 1931 novel, by Pearl S. Buck , adapted for the stage by, Owen Davis , and Donald Davis
- Produced by
- Irving Thalberg , Albert Lewin , (associate producer)
- Starring
- Paul Muni , Luise Rainer
- Cinematography
- Karl Freund , A.S.C.
- Edited by
- Basil Wrangell
- Music by
- Herbert Stothart , Edward Ward (uncredited)
- Production company
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Distributed by
- Loew's, Inc.
- Release date
- January 29, 1937 ( 1937-01-29 ) (United States)
- Running time
- 138 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $2,816,000
- Box office
- $3,557,000
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Genre
- drama film
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- English language
- Based on
- The Good Earth
- Director
- Gustav Machatý
- Screenwriter
- Frances Marion
- Cast member
- Richard Loo
- Composer
- Herbert Stothart
- Producer
- Irving Thalberg
- Production company
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Cinematographer
- Karl Freund
- Narrative location
- China
- Filming location
- Utah
- Duration
- 138
- FilmAffinity ID
- 353812
- Distribution format
- video on demand
- Image
- Luise Rainer in The Good Earth trailer.jpg
Show 10 more facts
- Commons category
- The Good Earth (film)
- publication date
- 1937-01-01
- nominated for
- Academy Award for Best Film Editing
- title
- The Good Earth
- executive producer
- Irving Thalberg
- distributed by
- Netflix
- color
- black-and-white
- production designer
- Cedric Gibbons
- after a work by
- Pearl S. Buck
- review score
- 95%
Sources (10)
via Wikidata · CC0
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Good Earth is a 1937 American drama film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive. It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the 1932 play by Owen Davis and Donald Davis, which was in itself based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. The film was directed by Sidney Franklin, with uncredited contributions by Victor Fleming and Gustav Machaty.
The film stars Paul Muni as Wang Lung. For her role as his wife O-Lan, Luise Rainer won an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Karl Freund. It was nominated for Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture. Its world premiere was at the elegant Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Good Earth” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.