Main Cast: Marlon Brando, Red Buttons, Ricardo Montalban, Miyoshi Umeki, Patricia Owens, Miiko Taka, Martha Scott
Release Year: 1957
Country: US
Run Time: 147 minutes
Plot
Sayonara takes its own sweet time to unfold; in so doing, it permits us to make intimate acquaintance with its characters, so as to better understand their multitextured motivations. The film is set in Japan during the Korean War. While on leave, pugnacious American soldier Red Buttons falls in love with Japanese maiden Miyoshi Umeki. Given the army's official policy against interracial marriage, Buttons is courting a court-martial. His best friend, major Marlon Brando, tries to talk Buttons out of "ruining" his life. Brando himself is about to marry Patricia Owens, the daughter of general Kent Smith. Fighting back his own prejudices, Brando agrees to be Buttons' best man at the latter's wedding to Umeki. Later, Brando himself falls for Miiko Taka, a beautiful Kabuki dancer. This sparks an all-out onslaught of racial bigotry from the Army brass, and an official edict sending American soldiers back to the states without their Japanese wives. Buttons cannot bear being parted with Umeki; as a result, the two commit suicide. The tragedy compels the army to soften its attitudes towards miscegenation. Brando is reunited with Taka, who in a parallel situation has had to ward off the inbred prejudices of her people. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, Sayonara won five, including "Best Supporting Actor" (Red Buttons, whose moribund career was revitalized herein) and "Best Supporting Actress" (Miyoshi Umeki). And yes, that is Ricardo Montalban in Japanese makeup as a Kabuki actor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
James Garner - Capt. Mike Bailey; Kent Smith - Gen. Webster; Douglass Watson - Col. Craford; Reiko Kuba - Fumiko-san; Soo Yong - Terukosan; The Shochuku Kagekidan Girls Revue; Harlan Warde - Consul
Lloyd "Ace" Gruver, the son of an Army general, stationed at Itami Air Force Base (now Osaka International Airport) near Kobe, Japan, falls in love with a Japanese entertainer who is a performer for a Takarazuka-like theater company, whom he meets through his enlisted crew chief, Airman Kelly. Kelly has married a Japanese woman, Katsumi, in spite of the disapproval of the United States military, which will not recognize the marriage. The Air Force, including Gruver, is against the marriage. Gruver and Kelly have an argument where Gruver uses a racial slur to describe Kelly's fiancee, but Gruver apologizes then agrees to be Kelly's Best Man at the wedding.
Kelly suffers further prejudice at the hands of a particularly nasty colonel, pulling extra duty and all the less-attractive assignments. When Kelly and many others who are married to Japanese are ordered back to the United States, Kelly realizes he won't be able to take his wife, who's now pregnant. Finding no other way to be together, Kelly and Katsumi commit double suicide, which strengthens Major Gruver's resolve to marry his Japanese lover. When asked by a Stars and Stripes reporter what will he say to both the "big brass" as well as the Japanese, neither of which will be particularly happy, Major Gruver says "Tell them I said 'Sayonara.'" This ending differs from that of the book, in which Gruver says "sayonara" to his Japanese girlfriend and returns to the States.
Production issues
Brando adopted a nondescript Southern accent for Gruver, despite the objections of director Logan, who didn't think that a general's son who was West Point-educated would speak that way. Later, Logan admitted to the author and journalist Truman Capote[citation needed] about Brando, "I’ve never worked with such an exciting, inventive actor. So pliable. He takes direction beautifully, and yet he always has something to add. He’s made up this Southern accent for the part; I never would have thought of it myself, but, well, it’s exactly right—it’s perfection.”
