The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

Directed by Frank Capra

An unusual love story from pre-Code Hollywood presents Barbara Stanwyck as a straight-laced American missionary in war-torn China who finds herself the unwilling guest of the eponymous general (Nils Asther). The lushly photographed melodrama continues as captor and captive fall for each other, a passion molded by tumultuous times and soon to become taboo in Hollywood.

Columbia Pictures Corp. Screenwriter: Edward Paramore, based on the novel by Grace Zaring Stone.  Cinematographer: Joseph Walker. Editor: Edward Curtis. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Toshia Mori, Walter Connolly, Gavin Gordon.

35mm, b/w, 89 min.