Flower Drum Song (film) - Background

Background

The film was unusual (for its time) in featuring nearly all Asian American cast members (one of the few speaking Caucasian parts being that of a mugger), including dancers, though two of the singing voices were not Asian ones. Starring in the movie were Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Benson Fong, James Hong, Reiko Sato and the original Broadway cast members Jack Soo, Miyoshi Umeki, and Juanita Hall (an African American actress who previously played the Pacific Islander Bloody Mary in the Broadway and film productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific).

Among various changes for the film, the song "Like a God" was changed from a song into a beat poetry presentation. The singing voice of the character "Linda Low" was that of B. J. Baker, a non-Asian studio singer who had worked with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, the Righteous Brothers, and Sam Cooke. The song "Love, Look Away" was also dubbed in by the American opera singer Marilyn Horne.

Although set in San Francisco, only a few scenes were actually filmed on location, notably a scene with Kwan and Shigeta on Twin Peaks. San Francisco watercolorist Dong Kingman painted the opening title art. Hermes Pan provided the choreography.

In 2008, Flower Drum Song was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was the only Hollywood adaptation of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to lose money. Lewis calls it "a bizarre pastiche of limping mediocracy". He comments that since the 1958 version of the musical was only rarely revived for decades after its initial run, the film "would in future years come to stand for the stage musical it so crassly misrepresented" and would serve as the version that academics and latter-day theatre critics would judge when they analyzed the musical. Asians often found the film offensive in later years, but David Henry Hwang, who revised the musical for a 2001 revival, "had a secret soft spot for the movie version. 'It was kind of a guilty pleasure ... and one of the only big Hollywood films where you could see a lot of really good Asian actors onscreen, singing and dancing and cracking jokes.'"

The 1961 soundtrack album from the film was critically praised and features dubbing by the opera singer Marilyn Horne ("Love, Look Away") and B. J. Baker (for Linda Low's songs).