Sayonara

"I am not allowed to love. But I will love you if that is your desire..."

Directed by Joshua Logan

Produced by Pennebaker Productions, William Goetz Productions

A mid-century romance that uses interracial love as a lens to examine institutional prejudice and personal moral courage in post-war Japan.

Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver is reassigned to a Japanese air base and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily, a by-the-book officer, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man, Joe Kelly, falls in love with a Japanese woman, Katsumi, and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.