The Bitter Tea of General Yen

The Bitter Tea of General Yen is a 1933 American PreCode drama film directed by Frank Capra, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and featuring Nils Asther and Walter Connolly. Based on the 1930 novel The Bitter Tea of General Yen by Grace Zaring Stone, the film is about an American missionary in Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War who gets caught in a battle while trying to save a group of orphans. Knocked unconscious, she is saved by a Chinese general warlord who brings her to his palace. When the general falls in love with the naive young woman, she fights her attraction to the powerful general and resists his flirtation, yet remains at his side when his fortune turns.

In the late 1920s in Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War, as throngs of refugees flee the rainswept city, a couple of elderly missionaries welcomes guests to their home for the wedding of Dr. Robert Strike Gavin Gordon, a fellow missionary, and Megan Davis Barbara Stanwyck, his childhood sweetheart whom he has not seen in three years. Some of the missionaries have a cynical view of the Chinese people they have come to save. Shortly after Megan arrives, her fianc Bob rushes in and postpones the wedding so he can rescue a group of orphans who are in danger from the spreading civil war. Megan insists on accompanying him on his mission.On the way they stop at the headquarters of General Yen Nils Asther, a powerful Chinese warlord who controls the Shanghai region. While Megan waits in the car, Bob pleads with the general for a safe passage pass so he can save the orphans. Contemptuous of Bobs missionary zeal, General Yen gives him a worthless paper that describes Bobs foolishness. Bob and Megan reach St. Andrews orphanage safely, but the pass only makes the soldiers laugh and steal their car when they try to leave with the children. The missionaries and children eventually reach the train station, but in the chaos, Bob and Megan are both knocked unconscious and are separated. ........

Source: Wikipedia