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Poster for The Good Earth
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Released
1937 · FILM

The Good Earth

“China… Land of unrest… Tomorrow they may starve!”

Directed by
Sidney Franklin, Sidney Franklin Nm0291548
Written by
Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger
Runtime
139 min
DramaRomance

Synopsis

Set in China during the Qing Dynasty, the story follows the arranged marriage of Wang Lung, a poor farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave. Their union faces numerous hardships over the years, and as fleeting prosperity brings new temptations, their love and the survival of their family are put to the test.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 21

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Basil WrangellShot by Karl FreundScored by Herbert Stothart

Box Office

1937 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.3× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$3.6M

Budget$2.8M
Worldwide gross$3.6M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Die gute Erdede
  • La buena tierraes
  • Visages d'Orientfr
  • La buona terrait

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