User Reviews

This is a gentle little film that may have it's faults with the hindsight of 40 years, but is enjoyable, especially I feel to those that remember the post WW11 days.

Alec Guinness plays the part beautifully, with his usual master of the character, Rosalind Russel plays a good stereotyped Jewish Mother .... the other characters just fill in between the lines. The only character that I find fault with is 'Eddy' the No. 1 boy of the family in Tokyo. He is obnoxious and completely out of character with a real 'House Boy' of the times that was lucky enough to get a 'cushy number' working for an American Diplomat.

In these days of virtual reality with sex, blood and car chases being the three main criteria of movie making, this movie is like going to a stage production from the 50's...... gentle and enjoyable.

Warner Bros. cast movie stars Rosalind Russell, and Alec Guiness in this movie based on the hit Broadway play directed by long time veteran Mervyn Le Roy with very fine Warner Bros production values.

Rosalind Russell an Irish Catholic Yankee was cast as a Brooklyn Jewish Matron, the part played by Gertrude Berg on Broadway. There is a lot of mileage between Roz Russell and Gertrude Berg! English star ( and also Catholic) Alec Guiness was assigned to play the Japanese male lead. Ms. Russell had a lot of talent and is one of the most glaring examples of a great actress who never won an Oscar. Alec Guiness right off his great Oscar win in The Bridge On The River Kwai playing the English officer tormented by his Japanese captors is elegant and intelligent in his performance in this film. Due to the deft professionalism and talent do these two very fine Stars pull off their characterization's.

Gary Vinson and Sharon Hugueny both WB stars are listed in the credits but I only saw them briefly. Warners contract star Ray Danton is fine in this film.

Unlike a few of her female contemporary film stars from the Thirties, Rosalind Russell managed to avoid the perils of being cast in horror films because it was the only roles she was offered. I think only Katharine Hepburn exercised better discretion in her parts even if for Russell they weren't always completely successful with audiences and critics.

Case in point is A Majority Of One. The play by Leonard Spiegelgass ran for 559 performances in the 1959-1960 season, it was a popular hit as well with Jewish audiences. Mainly because the play was done by THE Jewish American mother from radio and television, Gertrude Berg. As a small kid I do recall the lives and loves of Molly Goldberg and her family were almost a rite on the nights it was broadcast for my Jewish relatives. Berg was a natural for the part of the Jewish widow from 776 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

Anyway this tall prominent lay Catholic from Connecticut does give it a good try and she succeeds in many ways. Today's audiences in seeing this film don't have the memory of Gertrude Berg as Molly Goldberg to fall back on, so Russell's performance is more likely to be judged on its own merits. It's not a bad one.

The other casting however was and remains more controversial. Alec Guinness is one of those actors who can play just about any racial or ethnic type and has. He succeeded his fellow countryman Cedric Hardwicke who played the role of the Japanese industrialist on Broadway. Doesn't mean he should have though. If A Majority of One were made even 20 years later and if players were frozen in time, Jack Warner might have given serious consideration to casting a real Japanese in Sessue Hayakawa as the Japanese widower industrialist. That would have really been something, but at that time the film would have bombed at the box office.

Interesting too because the subject of the film is overcoming our prejudices. Rosalind Russell's son was killed in the Pacific Theater in World War II. She's a widow and when her son-in-law Ray Danton who is a career foreign service officer her daughter, Madelyn Rhue and Danton think she ought to go to Japan where he's been assigned his next post.

They fly to the Pacific and take a sea voyage to Japan where Russell meets Alec Guinness, a widower who's daughter was killed at Hiroshima. Despite his strict Buddhist faith and her Orthodox Jewish background, love can bloom in the strangest places and is good the second time around.

Russell admired Guinness's cerebral technique and total concentration on character when she worked with him. In a recent biography of Alec Guinness, nothing was mentioned about him and Russell, but he felt he was not given any kind of direction from Mervyn LeRoy. Both Russell and Guinness were heavy into Catholicism so I'm betting they got along.

Two members of the original Broadway cast made it to Hollywood, Mae Questal as Russell's neighbor and Marc Marno as their Japanese servant when they set up home in Japan. Questal has an interesting scene with Ray Danton when she announces she just doesn't like her new Puerto Rican neighbors. Danton rather self-righteously upbraids her for her prejudice, but then comes face to face with his own after making a fool of himself with Guinness during business and then facing the prospect he might have an oriental stepfather-in-law.

A Majority of One is a good film, in many ways better enjoyed now than when it first came out. But it misses greatness due to the timidity of the times in Hollywood.

Looking at the film afresh as a mature adult, I'm now amazed I never realized that however excellent an actor Alec Guiness was, he simply looked ludicrous as an ersatz Japanese man. He appeared to have some sort of tightening device around his eyes so that they always looked closed! I guess that passed for generic Asian looks in those days. Too bad at the time James Shigeta was too young for the part; I kept visualizing him as an older man. That quibble aside, it is truly a heartwarming tale and well-performed by the wonderful Rosalind Russell and Mr. Guiness. Nice to see a regular-guy performance by Ran Danton, too, as the son-in-law. I'd always associated him with "Legs" Diamond and other unsavory characters he usually seemed to play. All in all, entertaining and drives home some important points about tolerance and family relations.

What the world needs now and always is tolerance among people of different faiths. This sweet, charming film is a fine example of this principle. Rent it, buy it, see it. You won't be disappointed.

I bow to none in my admiration of Alec Guinness' acting prowess, but sometimes there are just roles which no self-respecting practitioner of the art should accept -- unless forced to at gunpoint -- and this was one of them.

I won't say Sir Alec didn't give it a good try. He had the mannerisms and body language down quite well, but OMG, that accent. And the makeup. And the director's insistence on shooting Guinness in profile -- there's just no way that nose could ever appear on a Japanese face!

It's a testament to Guinness' skill that there were times when I could almost suspend my disbelief. Almost. But ultimately this has to go down as one of the worst casting decisions since Brando portrayed an Okinawan in "Teahouse of the August Moon". (Although to be fair, neither was as flat-out jaw-droppingly bizarre as John Wayne's epically awful Genghis Khan, in "The Conqueror".)

Which is too bad, really. The movie had a lot of good things going for it, including a fairly touching chemistry between the leads as an American widow and Japanese widower who each lost a son in the war. There are solid supporting performances, too, and some nice comedic touches. Plus it's hard to actively dislike a film which includes a rare cameo by Mae Questel -- the voice of Betty Boop.

Besides Sir Alec's miscasting, there's also the sets, especially that horrific attempt at a Zen garden at Asano's residence. Maybe the producers thought the audience wanted that blatantly artificial look, so they could pretend they too were watching this hit play on Broadway. Then again, making the sets more believable might have only drawn more attention to Guinness' absurd makeup.

One of the great love stories of all time. If it is possible to fall in love with a movie I fell the first time I saw it. I did not have recorder at the time. I thought it might be a time filler when I saw the listing. I like Rosalind Russell and Alec Guinness so I tuned it in. I wish I had a recorder at that time.

It is wonderful movie. It starts with two elderly bigoted, hurt and angry people who go through trials and tribulations with her family and still get together in the end. They are hurt because of family losses during World War II.

It is a quiet romantic comedy that comes off beautifully.

If you like love stories, then this movie is a must.

It may be fortunate that this movie version of the Broadway hit "A Majority of One" runs a whopping 156 minutes--it takes nearly that long to accept Rosalind Russell as a Jewish widow from Brooklyn. Speaking with a broad Yiddish inflection (weary but wise), hovering like a mother hen, not listening or comprehending--just talking--Russell is encouraged by producer-director Mervyn LeRoy to give a stereotypical Jewish performance, nothing more. Her chatty Mrs. Jacoby is persuaded by her daughter and son-in-law to move with them to Japan after he becomes stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, but first her shock has to wear off (she's anti-Japanese after the death of her son during World War II). On the ship sailing for Tokyo, she meets wealthy Japanese gentleman Alec Guinness, who also lost his children in the war (to the Americans). After some polite-but-rude chit-chat, they take a shine to each other, but Russell's daughter frowns on their friendship, telling mama she's only being used because the businessman will need the Embassy's support in future East-West financial matters. Guinness is no better cast than Russell (it's excruciating when he jokes about pronouncing 'lollipop'). Still, Leonard Spigelgass's script, adapted from his play, has several funny jokes and interesting conversation, and the two stars settle almost comfortably into their roles (their final scene together is quite lovely). By examining strange customs, assimilation of foreign cultures, ignorant prejudice, and general misunderstandings between men and women (the latter in a slightly-joshing and sentimental vein), Spigelgass makes the length tolerable and the characters amiable. **1/2 from ****

For the first time I have seen the film A MAJORITY OF ONE. I also have been reading some of the reviews here on IMDb. So many of them harp on the fact that Alec Guinness was cast as the Japanese businessman who falls in love with Rosalind Russell's lonely Jewish widow. For that matter, some take exception to the casting of the Catholic Miss Russell as Mrs. Jacoby.

It's called acting, people! Mr. Guinness and Miss Russell certainly convinced me that they were these people - an elderly lonely Jewish widow and an equally elderly lonely Japanese widower who meet and, although from very different cultures, find a common ground.

This was a beautifully performed and profoundly moving story. I don't know how I've managed to never see it before. It left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. I will certainly be adding this film to my collection.

Today the negative criticism of this movie centers around the choice of Alec Guiness to play the older Japanese man. I suspect that, fifty-some years ago when this movie was made, an era in which Marlon Brando also played a Japanese man on screen (Teahouse of the August Moon), more eyebrows were raised by the casting of Catholic Rosalind Russell as the very Jewish Ms. Jacoby. (On Broadway that role had been played by Molly Picon, who had been an important figure in the New York Yiddish theater before moving to roles in English.)

If there are some Japanese stereotypes in this movie, there are even more New York Jewish stereotypes. Given that the play on which it was based, and the script for this movie, were written by Leonard Spigelgass, who was himself a Jewish man born in Brooklyn, like Ms. Jacoby, the apparent stereotypes become very complex. How different is Ms. Jacoby from, say, the Goldbergs in the famous radio series of that name, written by another Jewish writer, Gertude Berg?

So, what if we get off our pc horses for a moment, accept that the casting is strange for our time but not so strange for 50 years ago, and consider what else there is to the movie? Not much, frankly. Ms. Jacoby is quickly charmed by Mr. Asano, despite the fact that her son had been killed by the Japanese during the war only 15 years before. Thereafter the only problems she has with the Japanese businessman are those caused by her daughter and son-in-law. Mr. Asano appears to have no problems with being interested in a Caucasian woman. There isn't really a lot to the material.

Yes, of course, the two leads do a wonderful job with it, because they were first-rate actors. But there really isn't much to the material.

It's a pleasant movie, certainly, but if you stop getting upset about the casting, there really isn't a lot left to take an interest in.

...for all the wrong reasons!

This painfully long 60s cross culture romance is so offensive and poorly researched that it is hilarious! pretty much every major "Japanese" character is in fact a shorter white guy with their eyes three quarters closed. They all pronounce their 'l's as 'r's in absurd accents (that is when not slipping into british or american ones!).

The cultural references are also so bad they're funny! Basically the "Japanese" culture in this film is basically bits and pieces of a variety of Asian cultures put in a blender and then strained to an inconsistent mess! The stereotypes are absolutely hilarious too - especially the Japanese butler and businessmen!

At a camp, absurd level this is an absolute classic - it embodies every racial prejudice of 60s America and is completely oblivious to it! If it's ever on TV watch a bit for a kick, don't even think to attempt watching the whole thing - at 2 and a half hours it's painful!

Bertha Jacoby (Rosalind Russell) lives a sheltered life in a Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood. Her nosy friend neighbor Essie Rubin warns about the encroaching minorities. She's a widower who lost her son during the war. Her daughter Alice is moving to Japan with her husband Jerry Black. They convince her to join them despite her grudge against the Japanese. On the boat ride to Japan, she befriends wealthy widowed Japanese businessman Koichi Asano (Alec Guinness).

It's just strange to see this award winning movie with modern eyes. Guinness and his eye makeup is trying to play Japanese. It's an anti-racism movie but it's also white-washing a lead character. It's old Hollywood and we cannot expect better. A sharp eye will catch George Takei in one of his early roles. Without movies like this, he wouldn't have a career. While ignoring the white-washing, it's not much in terms of a drama. This is all about the message and that's too easy. I just can't get over the kindhearted but still slightly mannered Japanese speech from Guinness.

This movie was showing on television while I was reading a book. All of a sudden I heard the voice of the great Alec Guinness. I looked up, and it was indeed him on the screen. Since I was only half paying attention, it took a few more moments before I realized that Alec Guinness was playing a Japanese man, complete with makeup to make his eyes look slanted. Not only did I not believe for a second that this man was Japanese, this was one of the most offensive images I have ever seen. To me, this is just as bad as putting an actor in blackface to portray an African American. Guinness may be a master actor, but whoever cast him for this film was woefully misguided. Of course, next to the ridiculous Jewish stereotypes and bad performances from the other stars, this might not have seemed like a bad idea at the time. In 2001, it comes across as shockingly racist.

I've never seen another love story like A Majority of One. A story of two elderly individuals who are worlds apart having to overcome their racial prejudice, as well as being one of the few films in existence about love at old age. These imperfect and flawed characters feel so real and human, and while two and a half hours may seem overlong, I believe this time is justified. I wish more films could have the level of honest storytelling on display here.

The casting as Alec Guinness as a Japanese businessman has been widely criticised but I have disagree, I thought he was perfectly convincing in the role. His character is flawed, he's not the stereotypical wise old Asian man who is full of otherworldly knowledge which he easily could have been; he makes mistakes and doesn't have the answers to everything. Unlike many Asian characters in Hollywood films, he doesn't talk in broken English or exhibit any other commonly seen Asian stereotypes. Compared to Japanese stereotypes seen in World War II propaganda films 20 years earlier, A Majority of One was certainly a sign of progress.

Why should an actor's race limit the roles they can portray? If they play a character of a different race convincingly and in a non- offence manner, I don't see any reason to be up in arms. Should the roles an actor may want to attempt be limited to only characters of their race? I feel there is a double standard at play here; for a non white actor to be cast in a role or as a character originally conceived as white it will be viewed as forward thinking and progressive; for a white actor to be cast in a non white role then it is considered racist? Film is a business and you need big stars for a movie to be box office hit; how many Asian actors where big stars to American audiences in the early 60's. A movie like A Majority of One was an initial stepping stone to more equal representation in film, perhaps it not succeed as the film was not a box office success but the intent was there.

Rosalind Russell plays a potentially unlikable bigoted character but she manages to make the role endearing with her lovable nature and witty comebacks. I didn't see her character as an exaggerated stereotype. I've seen far more exaggerated representations of Jews in other films (do I even need to list examples?). Her character has lead an ingrown life in Brooklyn, however the movie shows the younger generation of her daughter and son in law holding more progressive views and are less conservative than their elders. Russell won't enter a bedroom wither son in law inhabiting without permission in case he isn't decent; her daughter on the other hand will just walk on in. Likewise the film highlights westernised trends in Japan such as Alec Guinness wearing a western flat cap tot the popularity of American music and Hollywood movies in Japan, while still acknowledging the anti American sentiment which exists in Japan. Also this movie has Eddie, a whiny little brat but in a funny way; I love this guy.

Alec Guinness acts as an elderly, influential Japanese businessman in this romance / comedy / drama set in the background of the aftermath of World War II .

When you see this film, you will, not for a minute, imagine that Mr. Koichi Asano (played by Alec Guinness ) is anything other than Japanese - so complete is the effort put in by this great actor.

Superb acting from both Alec Guinness and Rosalind Russell and a unique background of Japanese culture make this a very memorable movie.

A 'must' for all Alec Guinness fans !

Criminals should be forced to watch this cringe worthy endless drivel. Alec Guinness is over-the-top offensive with his half-closed slanty eyes, painted on skin tones, and cartoonish speech patterns. Yes this was a less enlightened time. But really? How can a movie promote understanding between Western and Eastern cultures when it casts an old white man as a Japanese man? It's simply ridiculous.

Rosalind Russell gives her usual feisty performance though she too manages a few icky cultural stereotypes herself. Ray Danton is forgettable as the son-in-law/villain. And what a shame that Alan Mowbray ended his career in this thing. The lessons A Majority of One purports to teach are obvious and one-dimensional at best. Burn the prints and leave this piece of crap back in the dark ages from whence it came. This is one of those movies that reminds us that the good old days may not have been so good.

In A Majority of One, Alec Guinness plays a Japanese businessman. I don't mean that he plays a British man masquerading as a Japanese man, I mean that he's supposed to be the Japanese man in the first place. Alec Guinness – spoiler alert – was not Japanese and didn't even look vaguely Asian, and yet there he was anyway. Guinness accomplished his portrayal by kind of squinting, something that I think most of us in 2017 would see as pretty racist. Were there no suitable Japanese actors in 1961? Or even actors with any Asian heritage? Using Caucasian actors to play Asian roles was certainly much more common at that time than it is now. The sentiment on the part of the movie studios was that American audiences wouldn't go to see a movie headlined by an Asian star. Sadly, they were probably right.

The movie itself is a culture clash in which widowed Mr. Asano (Guinness) and widowed Mrs. Jacoby (Rosalind Russell) meet on a ship traveling from the U.S. to Tokyo. Mrs. Jacoby is Jewish and hasn't even left New York, and yet there she is, on a transcontinental voyage with her daughter and her son in law, the latter of whom has received a diplomatic posting to Japan amid some tense trade negotiations. Mrs. Jacoby is not a fan of the Japanese, as her only son was killed in WW II, which would have been fresh in the minds of the audience, having occurred less than two decades earlier. Her wariness of Asians in general and Japanese in particular would have been relatable for 1961 audiences. Not so much for us today.

As Mrs. Jacoby and Mr. Asano become more acquainted, they develop a positive relationship – which, ironically enough, threatens to upend the son-in-law's negotiations with the Japanese government regarding their trade policies. This leads to misunderstandings that, like any good sitcom, are resolved in all good time. But not without some feelings being hurt and some minds being changed.

Guinness does his best to do the job he's given, but personally I couldn't look past the fact that this was a Caucasian man playing an Asian man (and not as a disguise, as Sean Connery's James Bond would do a few years later). Mr. Asano, as a result, feels like a caricature of what Hollywood must have felt Asians were like (or at least how Americans in general viewed Asians). To a lesser degree, Russell is also oddly cast – she, of Irish descent, playing an observing Jewish woman – but the stereotype isn't as stark as with Guinness's Asano. Russell, for her part, is entirely believable. (Look for Mae Questel as Jacoby's bigoted friend and George Takei as Asano's servant, too.) Finally, the movie is just too darn long. It's 2.5 hours! That's great for an action movie, maybe even a mystery, but not a romance drama that takes place in generally close quarters. The plot is simple enough, and the scenes set in Japan are exquisitely shot, but it's not enough to lift a movie that simply drags when it's not being outright offensive by modern standards.

Absolutely fabulous film showcasing the brilliant acting talents of Rosalind Russell, as a bitter Jewish widow, who lost a son to World War 11, finding happiness and possible romance with a Japanese businessman, Alec Guiness, who also has suffered war losses.

The film should certainly have been honored for promoting racial and religious understanding.

After criticizing a nosy neighbor, Mae Questel, in a fine performance, for wanting to move out of the neighborhood when minorities move in, the daughter and son-in-law have to confront their own prejudices when it appears that romance might just well be blossoming.

Ray Danton shows a tremendous maturity 6 years after his fine performance in "I'll Cry Tomorrow." With a larger part here, Danton was able to show his versatility in moving from comedy to drama within this film.

The film depicts cultural understanding as well as religious toleration. I often wondered why Gertrude Berg and Cedricke Hardwicke, both of whom appeared on Broadway in the show version, did not appear in the film. After seeing Roz Russell and Alec Guinness in the film version, I soon knew why. As the Brooklyn widow, Russell was able to have a marvelous inflection making her the typical Jewish woman from Flatbush. Guinness, as the Japanese business man, is able to do the same for a Japanese person. This wonderful film bridges the gap between generations and proves that understanding of others can ultimately lead to toleration. There is no generation gap here.

Maybe for someone with the attention span of a gnat.

Nice movie. Great portrayal by Alec Guinness. He somehow manages to overcome the impediment of a botox like makeup job to produce a completely convincing Japanese business man. Everything from the way he managed to sit in seiza (position of kneeling) in a relaxed manner to the way he spoke Japanese was convincing. He spoke Japanese with a better Japanese accent than he spoke English with a Japanese accent. The man was a freak. I was expecting something like the gibberish dialog of Kill Bill, but this movie got it right. Nice job done by Rosalind Russell too. Don't know her work, but I will keep my eye out.

Felt compelled to defend this sweet movie.

Alec sounded just as he always did, I was waiting for Darth to come out with his light saber and try to take him to the dark side. They must have had his eyes duct taped down, they looked as fake as the accent sounded. I didn't fully get into this story since I couldn't get over that ever changing accent. Sometimes he sounded French, for example, when he says something about "sh"anging trains and the word "diversification" other times it sounded German, Italian and British it just couldn't make up it's mind. The fake Japanese businessmen were not necessary at all (with their glasses on to make them look intelligent and visually impaired as all good stereotypical Japanese are).

I don't know, I just couldn't see Rosalind as a Jewish mother from Brooklyn. Her accent, makeup and clothes were never quite the right fit for her character. Her daughter is all American sophistication and propriety and is obviously not Rosalind's pretend daughter. And don't even get me started on Alec Guinness. I don't have a problem that he isn't Japanese, he just doesn't even begin to seem even the least bit Japanese. It was so bad I couldn't even pretend he was Japanese - it was very irritating trying to watch him pull it off. They all seem overly stiff and formal, and, well, just not very interesting. I'm glad so many of you seem to have enjoyed the movie but it just wasn't for me.

Some have criticized this picture for not featuring genuine Japanese actors in the leading roles. Remember: this was shot in '61 and there weren't any big name Japanese actors in Hollywood then. Viewers should suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story. Guinness does a good job and brings dry humor to the portrayal. Russell's Jewish Mommele is a bit overdone and laid on with a trowel, but still not bad. The personal stories and exchanges between the two are very touching and I like the rebuke to the younger folks who haven't the life experience to make the judgements about race and religion.

The final scene is priceless and moving.

I give the picture a 9 instead of a 10 only because the Eddie character was a bit annoying.