Difficult challenge for a successful actor

Cary Grant appears in this film as a character you cannot like. You can love his looks, love his charm. He is handsome as ever. But this character is quite selfish, greedy, and cowardly, while seducing the audience and Cho-Cho-San. He remains the matinee idol with other handsome heroic roles but you forget this while witnessing his Pinkerton fail emotionally to deliver the love that Cho-Cho-San deserves.

This makes the story even more heartbreaking. While the audience comes to this realization, the situation becomes so much worse when Cho-Cho San does not see this.