The Teahouse of the August Moon
(M-G-M), John Patrick's Broadway play based on Vern Sneider's novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1954. Translated to the screen by Playwright Patrick and Director Daniel Mann, it will probably impress most entertainment shoppers as one of the better comedy buys of the season.
Like the play, the movie makes a pleasant pretense of seeing America—by seeing American military government—as others see it. Along with the banalysis of democrazy, though, the authors have provided one of the most hilarious stripe teases of recent years. The big laugh is on Colonel Wainwright Purdy III (Paul Ford), who goes by the book (though he usually reads it upside down). "They're gonna learn democracy if I've gotta shoot every one of them," the colonel roars at Captain Fisby (Glenn Ford) as he bids the captain Godspeed to the village of Tobiki on Okinawa, where Fisby is assigned as military governor.
According to the book, the captain's first order of business is to deliver an address to the populace, explaining to them what democracy is and that they have it. Fisby explains. Everybody cheers. The captain is delighted—until his interpreter, a picturesque chink in U.S. defenses who is known as Sakini (Marlon Brando), explains that during 800 years of foreign occupation the Okinawans have learned to cheer whoever is in charge, no matter what he says. The captain is badly shaken —and so begins an alarming assault on American theory by Okinawan practice, a shameless corruption of democracy by the rule of the people.
Captain Fisby tries desperately to Get Down to Business, but Sakini keeps slyly bringing him pleasure in the form of the local geisha girl, name of Lotus Blossom (Machiko Kyo). He pleads eloquently for the erection of a pentagon-shaped schoolhouse, but Tobiki has suddenly worked up a democratic impulse to build a teahouse for its geisha girl to work in. In the end, when Colonel Purdy drops in for a surprise inspection, he sees before him a peculiar democratic vista. Captain Fisby, wandering around town in sandals and kimono, is directing the operations of the Tobiki Brewing Co., a cooperative corporation whose product—a local Sneaky Pete distilled from sweet potatoes—has proven sensationally popular with U.S. troops in the Far East, and whose profits have made the villagers wealthy.
In short, the only important difference between the play and the picture is its cast. Paul Ford, as the colonel, is the only carryover, and in closeup he seems even more a master of the cruder kinds of deadpantomime. Glenn Ford is amiable as young Captain Fisby; Machiko Kyo, one of the most gifted of Japanese cinemac tresses, is pleasantly giggly in a part that scarcely taxes her abilities. As Sakini, Marlon Brando seems to proclaim with every gesture that his talent is too big for his coolie britches.