Madame Butterfly ** (1932, Sylvia Sidney, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles) – Classic Movie Review 7342

Director Marion Gering’s 1932 Paramount Pictures black and white movie Madame Butterfly is an antique curio, but nevertheless an interesting one, and Sylvia Sidney makes something touching of the famous tragic heroine. The normally polished Cary Grant (Lieutenant Pinkerton) and Charles Ruggles (Lieutenant Baron), though, seem uncharacteristically gauche and unfortunately the film is hesitant and sluggishly paced.

The world-famous tragic tale, upon which Giacomo Puccini of course based his opera, comes to the screen in 1932 with the non-Japanese Sidney awkwardly cast as the Japanese geisha-in-training Cho-Cho San in love with the handsome American Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton (Cary Grant). They agree to wed, but he abandons her and leaves for the sea and the US. She has his son, and awaits his return. But three years later when Pinkerton finally arrives back in Japan he is married to his fiancée (Sheila Terry), now Mrs Pinkerton.

Some of Puccini’s music is used in the score.

Madame Butterfly is based on John Luther Long’s 1908 story and David Belasco’s 1910 hit play. The screenplay is by Josephine Lovett and Joseph Moncure March.

Previously, it was a silent movie for Mary Pickford in 1915.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7342

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