In A Majority of One, Alec Guinness plays a Japanese businessman. I don't mean that he plays a British man masquerading as a Japanese man, I mean that he's supposed to be the Japanese man in the first place. Alec Guinness – spoiler alert – was not Japanese and didn't even look vaguely Asian, and yet there he was anyway. Guinness accomplished his portrayal by kind of squinting, something that I think most of us in 2017 would see as pretty racist. Were there no suitable Japanese actors in 1961? Or even actors with any Asian heritage? Using Caucasian actors to play Asian roles was certainly much more common at that time than it is now. The sentiment on the part of the movie studios was that American audiences wouldn't go to see a movie headlined by an Asian star. Sadly, they were probably right.
The movie itself is a culture clash in which widowed Mr. Asano (Guinness) and widowed Mrs. Jacoby (Rosalind Russell) meet on a ship traveling from the U.S. to Tokyo. Mrs. Jacoby is Jewish and hasn't even left New York, and yet there she is, on a transcontinental voyage with her daughter and her son in law, the latter of whom has received a diplomatic posting to Japan amid some tense trade negotiations. Mrs. Jacoby is not a fan of the Japanese, as her only son was killed in WW II, which would have been fresh in the minds of the audience, having occurred less than two decades earlier. Her wariness of Asians in general and Japanese in particular would have been relatable for 1961 audiences. Not so much for us today.
As Mrs. Jacoby and Mr. Asano become more acquainted, they develop a positive relationship – which, ironically enough, threatens to upend the son-in-law's negotiations with the Japanese government regarding their trade policies. This leads to misunderstandings that, like any good sitcom, are resolved in all good time. But not without some feelings being hurt and some minds being changed.
Guinness does his best to do the job he's given, but personally I couldn't look past the fact that this was a Caucasian man playing an Asian man (and not as a disguise, as Sean Connery's James Bond would do a few years later). Mr. Asano, as a result, feels like a caricature of what Hollywood must have felt Asians were like (or at least how Americans in general viewed Asians). To a lesser degree, Russell is also oddly cast – she, of Irish descent, playing an observing Jewish woman – but the stereotype isn't as stark as with Guinness's Asano. Russell, for her part, is entirely believable. (Look for Mae Questel as Jacoby's bigoted friend and George Takei as Asano's servant, too.) Finally, the movie is just too darn long. It's 2.5 hours! That's great for an action movie, maybe even a mystery, but not a romance drama that takes place in generally close quarters. The plot is simple enough, and the scenes set in Japan are exquisitely shot, but it's not enough to lift a movie that simply drags when it's not being outright offensive by modern standards.
The movie itself is a culture clash in which widowed Mr. Asano (Guinness) and widowed Mrs. Jacoby (Rosalind Russell) meet on a ship traveling from the U.S. to Tokyo. Mrs. Jacoby is Jewish and hasn't even left New York, and yet there she is, on a transcontinental voyage with her daughter and her son in law, the latter of whom has received a diplomatic posting to Japan amid some tense trade negotiations. Mrs. Jacoby is not a fan of the Japanese, as her only son was killed in WW II, which would have been fresh in the minds of the audience, having occurred less than two decades earlier. Her wariness of Asians in general and Japanese in particular would have been relatable for 1961 audiences. Not so much for us today.
As Mrs. Jacoby and Mr. Asano become more acquainted, they develop a positive relationship – which, ironically enough, threatens to upend the son-in-law's negotiations with the Japanese government regarding their trade policies. This leads to misunderstandings that, like any good sitcom, are resolved in all good time. But not without some feelings being hurt and some minds being changed.
Guinness does his best to do the job he's given, but personally I couldn't look past the fact that this was a Caucasian man playing an Asian man (and not as a disguise, as Sean Connery's James Bond would do a few years later). Mr. Asano, as a result, feels like a caricature of what Hollywood must have felt Asians were like (or at least how Americans in general viewed Asians). To a lesser degree, Russell is also oddly cast – she, of Irish descent, playing an observing Jewish woman – but the stereotype isn't as stark as with Guinness's Asano. Russell, for her part, is entirely believable. (Look for Mae Questel as Jacoby's bigoted friend and George Takei as Asano's servant, too.) Finally, the movie is just too darn long. It's 2.5 hours! That's great for an action movie, maybe even a mystery, but not a romance drama that takes place in generally close quarters. The plot is simple enough, and the scenes set in Japan are exquisitely shot, but it's not enough to lift a movie that simply drags when it's not being outright offensive by modern standards.