Flower Drum Song

The only Rodgers and Hammerstein cinemadaptation to be produced by Universal Pictures, Flower Drum Song was, alas, also the only Rogers and Hammerstein film to lose money at the box office. It looks far better now than it did back in 1961, if only because of the paucity of musical films in the ...more

The weakest of the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musicals to be adapted for the screen, Flower Drum Song is noteworthy for its use of Asian characters and actors of Asian descent. Unfortunately, those characters are not given a great deal of depth -- or, more precisely, the attempts at giving them depth are entirely too shallow. Neither the characters nor the theme -- old ways vs. new ways -- are really delved into, with the result that the entire enterprise comes across as rather ...more