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| DRAGON SEED (1944) |
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture
B&W, 145 minutes
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CAST
Jade: Katharine Hepburn
Ling Tan: Walter Huston
Mrs. Ling Tan: Aline MacMahon
Wu Lien: Akim Tamiroff
Lao Er: Turhan Bey
Lao San: Hurd Hatfield
Orchid: Frances Rafferty
Third Cousin's Wife: Agnes Moorehead
Third Cousin: Henry Travers
Captain Sato: Robert Lewis
Japanese Kitchen Overseer: J. Carrol Naish
Lao Ta: Robert Bice
Mrs. Wu Lien: Jacqueline De Wit
Fourth Cousin: Clarence Lung
Neighbor Shen: Paul E. Burns
Wu Sao: Anna Demetrio
Major Yohagi: Ted Hecht
Captain Yasuda: Abner Biberman
Old Peddler: Leonard Mudie
Japanese Diplomat: Charles Lung
Student: Benson Fong
Japanese Guard: Philip Van Zandt
Japanese Officer: Al Hill
Japanese Soldier: J. Alex Havier
Leader of City People: Philip Ahn
Speaker with Movies: Roland Got
Young Farmer: Robert Lee
Old Clerk: Frank Puglia
Hysterical Woman: Claire Du Brey
Innkeeper: Lee Tung Foo
Japanese Soldier: Jay Novello
Japanese Official: Leonard Strong
Narrator: Lionel Barrymore
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CREDITS
Director: Jack Conway, Harold S. Bucquet
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Scenarists: Marguerite Roberts, Jane Murfin
Based on the novel by: Pearl S. Buck
Photographer: Sidney Wagner
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Associate Art Director: Lyle R. Wheeler
Set Decorator: Edwin B. Wallis
Associate Set Decorator: Hugh Hunt
Editor: Harold F. Kress
Sound Recorder: Douglas Shearer
Musical Score: Herbert Stothart
Makeup Artist: Jack Dawn
Special Effects: Warren Newcombe
Costume Supervisor: Irene
Costumer: Valles
Assistant Director: Al Shenberg
Technical Director: Wei F. Hsueh
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SYNOPSIS
Lao Er, a young Chinese farmer, does not understand his wife Jade. She is idealistic and at the same time realistic about the new China. Lao Er's father, Ling Tan, discusses the then-distant threat of Japanese aggression as if there is nothing much to worry about. When the Japanese actually are approaching, Jade and Lao Er go to the interior with Chinese patriots who plan to set up munitions factories there.
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CRITIQUES
"Miss Hepburn's gulping elocution bothered me at the outset, but she went on to make Jade a rather wondrous character. Huston is splendid as Ling Tan and Miss MacMahon never fails to be restrained and right."
- Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune, 1944
"The strong mannerisms of Katharine Hepburn make the pretense very difficult in her case, but beneath them emerges a vigorously conceived character, a girl who grows from flower-like fragility to rugged, warrior womanhood."
- Alton Cook, New York World-Telegram, 1944
"If MGM had a sense of shame, this abomination wouldn't have been released. Based on a novel by Pearl S. Buck, it is about the effects of war on a Chinese family, but it was made in a California-built China, and the Chinese simple-folk characters are played by Katharine Hepburn, Turhan Bey, Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead, Hurd Hatfield, Akim Tamiroff, Aline MacMahon, and Henry Travers. It's a howler all right, but so drearily, patronizingly high-minded that there aren't many laughs. Directed by Jack Conway and Harold S. Bucquet, from a script by Marguerite Roberts and Jane Murfin; with a particularly offensive 'ethnic' score, devised by Herbert Stothart."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
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COMMENTARY TRACK
"God, she was tough! She was difficult - but even when she drove you mad, you had to admire her spunk, her guts. She got exactly what she wanted - wouldn't work any later than she thought she should, wanted triple overtime - but when she was on the set, she toiled like a bridge mender."
- Pandro S. Berman
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HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
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NTSC Standard:
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Katharine Hepburn
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Turhan Bey, Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn
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On the set: Pearl S. Buck, Jack Conway, Katharine Hepburn
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