The Good Earth - 1937

When Irving Thalberg, MGM's production chief, negotiated with Warner Bros. to cast Paul Muni, Muni told him, "I'm about as Chinese as Herbert Hoover." Thalberg had to lend Clark Gable and Leslie Howard to Warners to secure Muni's services.

The first time that Irving Thalberg's name appeared onscreen. The movie - the last one he produced - was dedicated to him "as his last great achievement."

Irving Thalberg envisioned casting only Chinese actors for the movie, but gave up the idea because there were not enough suitable Chinese actors.

Because the Sino-Japanese war was in progress, the Chinese government threatened not to approve the movie if any Japanese actors were cast in any role.

James Stewart, who worked as a contract player at MGM in the 1930s, tested for, and almost got, the part of Wang Lung.

Victor Adams, who was Paul Muni's stand-in, also played Wang Lung (Muni's character) in long shots when Muni went AWOL from the set.

Special effects experts were unable to produce an authentic looking locust plague. Just as they were about to abandon the scene, they received word that a real locust plague was taking place several states away. A camera crew was rushed to the scene to capture it on film.

The location shots in China were filmed by director George W. Hill for a movie that was later abandoned. Hill had died by the time this film went into production.

For the second year in a row, Luise Rainer won a Best Actress Oscar, becoming the first performer to win two Academy Awards and the first to win two Oscars in two years.

According to Peter Hay's 1991 book "When the Lion Roars", when MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer learned of production chief Irving Thalberg's desire to film Pearl S. Buck's novel about Chinese peasants, he told him, "The public won't buy pictures about American farmers, and you want to give them Chinese farmers?" Opposed by Mayer, Thalberg had to appeal to Nicholas Schenck, the chief executive of MGM parent Loew's Theaters Inc. and President of MGM, to make the film. Permission was given, but Thalberg never lived to see the film completed. This is the only film that bears a Thalberg producer credit.

Sam Wood directed the "robbing of the big house" sequence, some retakes and other additional footage.

The play by Owen Davis and Donald Davis, based on Pearl S. Buck's novel, opened in New York on 18 October 1933 at the Guild Theater with Claude Rains and Alla Nazimova in the lead roles and ran for 56 performances.

Anna May Wong desperately wanted the role of O-Lan. Being a close friend of author Pearl S. Buck helped. She tested for the role, but producer Irving Thalberg was unsatisfied. He offered her the secondary "vamp" role but a distraught Anna May turned it down.

Victor Sen Yung's first movie.

Cast of The Good Earth

Paul Muni as Wang Lung, a farmer
Tilly Losch as Lotus
Luise Rainer as O-Lan, Wang Lung's wife
Charley Grapewin as Old Father, Wang Lung's parent
Walter Connolly as Wang Lung's uncle
Jessie Ralph as Cuckoo

Yong Soo as Aunt
Keye Luke as Elder Son
Roland Lui as Younger Son
Suzanna Kim as Little Fool, Wang Lung's simpleminded daughter
Ching Wa Lee as Ching, Wang Lung's friend and later steward of his lands
Harold Huber as Cousin
Olaf Hytten as Liu, the grain merchant
William Law as the gateman
Mary Wong as Little Bride