Sayonara

Sayonara (1957) is a Marlon Brando drama you can watch online on iFILM. Joshua Logan directed it from James Michener's novel. Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver, a Korean War flying ace, is posted to a base in Japan and lands in the middle of a culture clash he never expected.

The military frowns on its men marrying Japanese women, and Gruver, a by-the-book officer, starts out siding with command. Then his buddy Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) weds a local woman, Katsumi, and Gruver himself falls for a stage performer named Hana-ogi (Miiko Taka). The deeper he steps into her world, the clearer the cost of that choice becomes. Standing as best man at Joe's wedding already puts his career at risk. Loving someone himself risks far more.

For 1957 this was charged material — an interracial romance on the big screen verged on provocation. Brando plays a Southerner slowly unlearning his own prejudice, in one of his quieter, more restrained turns. The picture collected four Oscars, among them both supporting-acting prizes, which went to Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki. It's for anyone who loves sweeping old-Hollywood melodrama where the personal and the political are tangled together. Stream Sayonara (1957) online on iFILM.