''Joe Butterfly'' is a 1957 American

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by

Jesse Hibbs Jesse John Hibbs (January 11, 1906 – February 4, 1985) was an American film and television director and American football player. He played college football at the University of Southern California (USC), where he was an All-American tackle f ...

starring

Audie Murphy Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971) was an American soldier, actor and songwriter. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from t ...

, George Nader and

Keenan Wynn Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn (July 27, 1916 – October 14, 1986) was an American character actor. His expressive face was his stock-in-trade; and though he rarely carried the lead role, he had prominent billing in most ...

, with

Burgess Meredith Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed theater, film, and television. Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "on ...

in the title role as a Japanese man. The movie was action star Murphy's only outright comedy, and it suffered by comparison to the similar '' Teahouse of the August Moon'', released seven months earlier. The film was based on an unproduced play.

Plot

The film follows the staff of the Army weekly magazine ''Yank'', who are among the first American troops in Tokyo after Japan's surrender. They are given the difficult task of producing an issue of the magazine in three days. Short on ideas and having to meet the deadline, they enter Japan's

black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...

and come across

con artist A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have ...

Joe Butterfly. Butterfly shows them the high life, letting them live in a mansion complete with beautiful girls.

Cast

as Private John Woodley * George Nader as Sergeant Ed Kennedy *

as Henry Hathaway * Keiko Shima as Chieko *

Fred Clark Frederick Leonard Clark (March 19, 1914 – December 5, 1968) was an American film and television character actor. Early years Born in Lincoln, California, Clark was the son of Fred Clark Sr. He attended Stanford University with plans to become ...

as Colonel E. E. Fuller *

John Agar John George Agar Jr. (January 31, 1921 – April 7, 2002) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for starring alongside John Wayne in the films ''Sands of Iwo Jima'', '' Fort Apache'', and '' She Wore a Yellow Ribbon''. In h ...

as Sergeant Dick Mason *

Charles McGraw Charles McGraw (born Charles Crisp Butters; May 10, 1914 – July 29, 1980) was an American stage, film and television actor whose career spanned more than three decades. Early life McGraw was born to Beatrice (née Crisp) and Francis P. B ...

as Sergeant Jim McNulty * Shinpei Shimazaki as a little boy * Reiko Higa as False Tokyo Rose *

Tatsuo Saitō was a Japanese film actor and director. He appeared in more than two hundred films between 1925 and 1967. Career Saitō joined Nikkatsu studios, where he made his film debut in 1925, before moving to Shochiku two years later. He appeared in m ...

as father * Chizu Shimazaki as mother * Herbert Anderson as Major Ferguson *

Eddie Firestone Eddie Firestone (December 11, 1920 – March 1, 2007) was an American radio, television, and film actor who accumulated over 200 total credits during his performing career. Early life When he was 12, Firestone was in the cast of ''Wheatenavil ...

as Sergeant Oscar Hulick * Frank Chase as Chief Yeoman Saul Bernheim * Harold Goodwin as Colonel Hopper * Willard Willingham as a soldier *

as Joe Butterfly

Production

The movie was shot partly in Hong Kong and Japan as well as aboard the USS ''Los Angeles''. According to co-writer

Sy Gomberg Sy Gomberg (August 19, 1918 – February 11, 2001) was an American Oscar-nominated film screenwriter, producer, and activist, who taught screenwriting to University of Southern California students for over a decades. Gomberg was born in New ...

, Audie Murphy was extremely uncomfortable playing comedy. However, the movie was an enormous hit in Japan, in part because of the Japanese people's admiration for Murphy, and partly because of its sympathetic depiction of the Japanese.Don Graham, ''No Name on the Bullet: The Biography of Audie Murphy'', Penguin, 1989 p 266-267 Following the film, Murphy brought home a 14-year-old Japanese girl who stayed with the Murphys and helped raise their children while she attended school in America. The original choice for the title character was meant to be

David Wayne David Wayne (born Wayne James McMeekan, January 30, 1914 – February 9, 1995) was an American stage and screen actor with a career spanning over 50 years. Early life and career Wayne was born in Traverse City, Michigan, the son of Helen M ...

who had appeared as Sakini in the stage production of '' Teahouse of the August Moon''. When he was unavailable the role was taken by Burgess Meredith who also played Sakini on stage.Erickson, Hal ''Military Comedy Films: A Critical Survey and Filmography of Hollywood Releases Since 1918'' McFarland, 30 Jul. 2012 p. 176

References

External links

*
''Joe Butterfly''
at

TCMDB Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of A ...

{{Jesse Hibbs 1957 films 1957 comedy films CinemaScope films Audie Murphy American comedy films American crime films Films set in Tokyo Universal Pictures films Films directed by Jesse Hibbs American films based on plays Films with screenplays by Jack Sher Japan in non-Japanese culture 1950s English-language films 1950s American films

Plot

Cast

Production

See also

References

External links