THE GOOD EARTH

These photographs are from the film THE GOOD EARTH adapted from the novel by Pearl S. Buck. The book, published in 1931, was considered a masterpiece and won the Nobel Prize for Buck. Themes of earth, God and women were explored as well as family life in a pre-revolution Chinese village. O-Lan, (in these pics) was the quiet, long-suffering wife and mother and Wang Lung her husband and patriarch of the family. Supposedly, this novel helped pre-war Americans to consider the Chinese as allies in the coming war with Japan, though I find this a stretch. They were desperate times in China with drought, famine, poverty - themes I guess Americans understood at the time. I'd have to read the book and watch the movie and research Buck's reason for writing this tome before commenting more on the subject. Nevertheless, you can find these photographs and others from the 1937 movie in my etsy shop.