10.6.09

a majority of one (1961)

A Jewish widow (Rosalind Russell) and a Japanese businessman (Alex Guinness) widower meet on a cruise liner to Yokohama. Their initial prickliness turns to friendship. Unfortunately her son-in-law is traveling to Japan to become a trade ambassador and believes that she is being used by Alex and warns her off. This causes the usual confusion until it comes to a head, but eventually they come back together in this gentle love story. Both learning tolerance, kindness and forgiveness.
Based on a hit Broadway play this is a very stagy reproduction, with a hideously miscast Alex Guinness as a Japanese businessman. Oh those were the days when you could get well respected actors to do such things. Otherwise it is entertaining, though long winded, clash of Japanese and Jewish American cultures.

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