Synopsis
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932) is a Frank Capra melodrama you can watch online on iFILM. It's an odd one for Capra — no comedy, no easy uplift, just a dangerous attraction in a Shanghai torn apart by civil war.
American Megan Davis arrives in China to marry her missionary fiancé, but the chaos of the streets pulls them apart. She ends up inside the compound of General Yen, a cold and cultured warlord who keeps her more as a guest than a captive. Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman watching her own convictions buckle under a feeling she refuses to name. Nils Asther is the general, used to getting what he wants and, for once, unsure how.
The film opened New York's Radio City Music Hall and rattled audiences with its romance across the color line — close to scandal in 1933. Made before the Hays Code clamped down, it shows in every charged scene. Stanwyck is a quiet storm throughout. Stream The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932) online on iFILM.
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