Joe Butterfly

Joe Butterfly 1957 is an American comedy film directed by Jesse Hibbs for UniversalInternational and starring Audie Murphy, George Nader and Keenan Wynn, with Burgess Meredith in the title role as a Japanese man. The movie was action star Murphys only outright comedy, and it suffered by comparison to the similar Teahouse of the August Moon, released seven months earlier.

The movie was shot partly in Hong Kong and Japan. According to cowriter Sy Gomberg, Audie Murphy was extremely uncomfortable playing comedy. However, the movie was an enormous hit in Japan, in part because of the Japanese peoples admiration for Murphy, and partly because of its sympathetic depiction of the Japanese. Following the film, Murphy brought home a 14yearold Japanese girl who stayed with the Murphys and helped raise their children while she attended school in America.

Source: Wikipedia