bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

quizIds

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

paywallTypes

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Peter Walbrook

Flower Drum Song
Starring: Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Jack Soo
Director: Henry Koster
The film: The first Hollywood film
to feature an all-Asian cast, Flower Drum Song was adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein  Broadway musical, which in turn was based on the book The Flower Drum Song: A Novel of San Francisco's Grant Avenue,  by C. Y. Lee.
It was also the first  major Hollywood movie to be headlined by a Hong Kong performer - Nancy Kwan, fresh from her successful debut as the title character in The World of Suzie Wong (1960).
Set in San Francisco's Chinatown - impressively recreated on a Universal Studios soundstage - Flower Drum Song proved less popular than other Rodgers and Hammerstein screen musicals, but was nominated for five Oscars and launched or boosted the careers of several Asian American actors.
Despite its milieu, four of the principal cast members were in fact Japanese Americans, notably Golden Globe winner James Shigeta  and Miyoshi Umeki,  who had already become the first Asian actor to win an Oscar in 1958 (for supporting actress in Sayonara with Marlon Brando).
But the ensemble worked well together, with some polished dance performances, especially from  Filipino-American Patrick Adiarte  and the eerily Robert Mitchum-like Jack Soo (below with Kwan).
Many of the performers were drafted in from the stage production, including Soo, who had earlier been brought to the Broadway show from San Francisco where he was talent scouted while working at the once famous Forbidden City  nightclub, the setting for Lee's original novel.
Despite the cast pedigree, Flower Drum Song has received some criticism for its perceived stereotypical portrayals of Chinatown (this is a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, after all).
But as a historical showcase of the vast pool of Asian-American talent then available in Hollywood, which was never fully assembled again on screen, it's a unique, important and genuinely entertaining film.
The extras: Nancy Kwan and film historian Nick Redman provide a well-paced commentary, with Kwan describing her early life in Hong Kong, how she came to be cast opposite William Holden  in The World of Suzie Wong, as well as recalling her time on Flower Drum Song.
Three new featurettes include A Classic Evolves: From Print to Stage to Screen, Faces of the East: Casting Flower Drum Song and The Songs of Flower Drum Song. These are all taken from the same 45-minute set of interviews with former cast members and Rodgers and Hammerstein aficionados, as are a couple more segments looking at sets and costumes.
Picture quality on this widescreen-enhanced transfer (director Henry Koster also helmed The Robe, the first widescreen movie  to be released, in 1953) is not bad at all, but colours shift noticeably during later scenes.
Sound is offered in original stereo and enhanced Dolby 5.1.



From the vault: 1961