Bitter Tea Of General Yen , The (1932, U.S.A.)

Frank Capra’s only all-out attempt to make what he called “an art film”; was one of his few box-office flops, despite earning a place in history as the film that opened the Radio City Music Hall in New York. Dealing with the then-;touchy subject of miscegenation, it stars Barbara Stanwyck – in the last of her four Columbia films with Capra – as a woman arriving in China to marry her missionary fiance. But it’s a time of great upheaval, and she’s kidnapped by a ruthless warlord (Nils Asther) who’s very attracted to her. Stunningly photographed by Joseph Walker, this is a haunting, dream-like movie that is indeed unlike almost everything else Capra ever made.

The cast also includes Toshia Mori, Gavin Gordon, Lucien Littlefield, and Walter Connolly, brilliantly cast against type as a renegade American gun-runner.