Main character energy… Java Head (1934)/Drifting (1923), BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

 

“That she is an exceptionally clever actress one cannot doubt. She may merely wander through a corner of the picture, but she’ll register a hit every time.”

H.C. “A Chinese Puzzle”, Pictures and Picturegoer, February, 1924¹

 

Two films made over a gap of eleven years which show how our hero did indeed reinvent herself to keep working. Season curator Xin Peng pointed out in her introduction for the second film that whilst featuring as a teen in films staring Colleen Moore, Priscilla Dean and Alla Nazimova, she enjoyed a longer career than any of them, transitioning into the talkies not just in English but German, French, Chinese and “The King’s English” required for her roles in British films especially when American became briefly unpopular. Priscilla’s last film was Klondike in 1932 at the grand old age of 36 and Colleen’s last was The Scarlet Letter (1934) when she was 35 and certainly in a position to do what ever she wanted, be it building a dolls house or investing her money wisely.

 

Wong did not have the luxury of being able to retire early and she was only just picking up steam in the early thirties when she found fame and some fortune outside of the USA, breaking barriers in the UK and Germany, learning stage craft and putting on shows in China and Australia. She was willing to learn, not just languages but also the dancing always expected of her and the diction required to conquer the microphone. And, what guts did it take to step on stage in 1929, alongside Laurence Olivier to perform The Circle of Chalk at the New Theatre in London?

Anna May Wong in Drifting

 

Drifting (1923) with John Sweeney

 

As Yiman Wang points out² Anna (AMW) was only ever a freelancer with no substantial contracts in the manner of these other stars and, of course, even at the time in Hollywood it was remarked upon by the industry observers how she was never given star roles, the most she could hope for was a secondary role she could and often did make her own. So it is with Drifting directed by her “mentor” and sometime partner³, Todd Browning, who was 43 to her 18… He had previously worked with her on Outside the Law (1921) when she was underage and he married yet infatuated by the “exotic” and – for him – “unusual” girl^4.

 

In addition to being “the most murdered actress in Hollywood”, Anna May Wong is arguably the greatest scene-stealer even when given stereotypical roles and predictable narratives. This film followed on from her first substantial role in The Toll of the Sea (1922) and was intended as a vehicle for Universal’s “queen of the lot”, Priscilla Dean who dominates the screen time but to limited effect in comparison with AMW, who, looking even younger than her age, shifts through her dramatic progressions with some force whilst Dean just looks angry most of the time which, given the confusions of the script, is not surprising.

 

Matt Moore and Priscilla Dean

The new white man is very guarded in his language – I don’t know, maybe he is not the mine chief he claims to be…

 

The story? Well… there’s something about a government agent Capt. Arthur Jarvis (Matt Moore) posing as an entrepreneur trying to re-open a mine which is somehow cover for his attempts to shut down the opium trade around Hang Chow, a village near the poppy fields run by the Jhanzi outlaws. In Shanghai, opium dealer Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean) isn’t making much money out of the profession and as her best pal lies dope sick, she is forced to team up with the rascally Jules Repin (Wallace Beery wearing a devious beard) who persuades her they can get rich on the pickings in Hang Chow.

 

Here they team up with the scheming Dr Li (William V. Mong in horrific yellow face) who whilst being no relation to Dr Fu Manchu, is supposed to be the father of the fragrant Rose Li (Anna May Wong) no matter how unlikely this is based on appearance. Meanwhile Rose has fallen for the noble Captain Jarvis and spends hours watching him standing outside the mine talking to his reliably Irish assistant, Murphy (Yale graduate J. Farrell MacDonald who probably got his Gaelic nose busted playing college football…) about opening the mine and how the two of them will defeat the massed ranks of the Jhanzi.

 

As with Mary Pickford, Anna May Wong could cry on cue...

Cassie and Repin collude with Dr Li and the former goes undercover as a novelist aiming to find out more about Jarvis’ two-man army only to fall in love with him. This complicates things greatly as tensions mount and the Jhanzi attack bringing out the best and worst of everyone: will Cassie choose the money or the man and can Rose put love and life before her duty to her evil father?

 

Her performances appropriate and splinter the stereotypes, upending their objecthood with a critical and sardonic twist…⁵

 

It’s an enjoyably odd film not just because of Browning’s uneven style but also a story that is, as The New York Tribune observed, “incoherent” with a “disagreeable” lead character⁶ that made them root for AMW’s Rose and they’re not the only ones. Anna May and J. Farrell are the most sympathetic watch as well as the token lovable kid, Billy the son of civilising missionaries, played by child actor Bruce Guerin who, when he grew up, became a professional pianist accompanying Bob Hope and many others.

  

John Loder and Anna May Wong clinch...

Java Head (1934)

 

AMW was 28 when she made this film and she first worked with producer Basil Dean on the theatrical version of The Circle of Chalk (1929) after he had been impressed with her performance in Piccadilly. The play had mixed reviews with her appearance praised and her “Hollywood accent” roundly condemned by such as the Bystander: “… it comes as a shock… to listen to the harsh nasal twang emitted from a figure of ancient China…” and the Graphic quipping “With Anna May Wong talking so American that Anna May Twang might be an apter name” ⁷.

 

As she did tie and again, Anna treated this setback as a learning experience and by the time of Dean’s Java Head she had learned the King’s English with the same alacrity as she did German and other languages. The result if her near perfect diction and characterful pronunciation that was usually more associated with the Orient at this time. Directed by J. Walter Ruben, with uncredited assistance from Thorold Dickinson and young Carol Reed, Java Head tells a story that would not have been legally possible in the USA with Anna May not only headlining but seen to kiss her Caucasian co-star John Loder. This ground-breaking moment was acceptable in Great Britain as the characters were married but even this is not especially evidence that, as Cole Porter was to report in the same year, “anything goes…” as the film gives mixed messages on racial tolerance and cultural-romantic compatibility.

The family meet...

 

The film is based in Bristol and the fortunes of two merchant shipping families, the thrusting Ammidons and the failing Dunsacks led by two former friends who had fallen out over twenty years earlier following a tragedy at sea.  Lovable Edmund Gwenn plays Jeremy Ammidon who even nearing the age of retirement is still passionate about his business and sailing ships whilst his land-lubber son, William (the great Ralph Richards), feels they need to innovate with steam and the fast clipper ships as well as the types of cargo they carry. Youngest son, the dashing Captain Gerrit Ammidon (John Loder) is eager for adventure and has the familial sea legs.

Gerrit sparks the old feud by falling for the Nettie Vollar (Elizabeth Allan), the granddaughter of old man Barzil Dunsack (Herbert Lomas) who in addition to hating the Ammidons, loves God a lot and in addition has yet to forgive Nettie for being born out of wedlock, one of a number of sins unmentioned but implied in a story partly based on implied opium trading and addiction. Barzil’s faulty logic drives Gerrit to sea and he leaves to make his fortune trading around the World.

 

A year later he returns and he has brought his new wife with him, Taou Yuen (Anna May Wong) much to the distress of his family, and of course lonely Nettie. She may well be a princess but this cuts no rice with the locals for whom she is “a heathen Chinese! From China!” who causes outrage when she attends church among all but the priest who hopes to discuss the teachings of Confucius with her. She also gets a warm welcome from Barzil’s son and Nettie’s uncle, Edward Dunsack (George Curzon) who is seemingly as addicted to China as he is to opium although again this is implied with Gerrit having brought a mysterious chest from Shanghai for him.

AMW generates MCE at the church

As the family gradually accepts Taou Yuen she forms a bond with Laurel, the youngest Ammidon child (an uncredited but spirited performer) who dresses up in Chinese clothes and make-up entering the room just as Edward is harassing her aunt and in his opium-addled state capable of anything. This narrative is also capable of anything and pulls a 360 or two over the closing sequences as Gerrit falls back in love with Nettie and starts to question his marriage. So too does Taou Yuen in ways that I can’t really explain here… themes very much of their time.

 

In the after-screening Q&A, season curator Xin Peng pointed out that AMW was very keen to make the film and so the mixed outcome is a surprise but perhaps balanced by the more positive aspects of the film and the actor’s skill in presenting more than the script demands in terms of authentic character and feeling. Once again she rises above and subverts the surface narrative in ways we see more clearly now than most would in 1934.

 

The film was made in between AMW’s theatrical tours of Britain which demonstrate her relentless ability to conquer new territories and theatrical routes as she carved out an unique path across countries and cultural boundaries. A truly remarkable woman.

 

There is so much more to see and learn from this season and full details of Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention can be found on theBFI website. Do not miss out!

  

1.       As quoted by Yiman Wang in “To Be an Actress: Labour and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World”, University of California Press 2024

2.       Also, in “To Be an Actress…”

3.       According to David J. Skal and Elias Savada in The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood’s Master of the Macabre, Doubleday, 1995 as quoted in the BFI’s screening notes.

4.       Katie Gee Salisbury in Anna May Wong: Not Your China Doll, Faber 2024. When Browning’s wife discovered the liaison she left him.

5.       In “To Be an Actress…”

6.       David J. Skal and Elias Savada again.

7.       Katie Gee Salisbury in Anna May Wong

 

 

The root of all evil? Alraune (1928) with Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne, Barbican

So good to be back at the Barbican for a rare silent screening and with expertly inspired accompaniment from the two-man band of Horne and Pyne: four hands, ten instruments?

Directed with sure-footed competence more than style by Henrik Galeen, Alraune doesn’t rank with the best of Weimar cinema but it is still a very interesting film and one I’ve always wanted to see projected with live accompaniment. There are long passages when little happens but human interactions and the music sustained the film in these quieter moments. Variously known as Unholy Love, Mandrake, or A Daughter of Destiny, Alraune is missing a few key segments and again the accompaniment stepped in to offer thematic uplifts as well as emotional context throughout.

The music was eloquently varied, featuring more than just the duo’s prime instruments of drum and piano. Martin’s vibraphone, played with bow as well as soft mallets, lead the line in plaintive and eerie interplay with Stephen’s piano and as the two switched instruments they worked superbly well in support of the events on screen. There was magic in the air on and off.

On screen the magic stemmed from the Germanic Middle Age legend of the Mandrake root (the Alraune of the title), which – and listen carefully here - if left to absorb a hanged man’s “essence” in the ground under his execution, was capable of giving life either by enabling pregnancies or helping witches produce children without the aid of a living sperm donor. Such progeny were said to have no souls and sound far more trouble than they’re worth but, you know, there’s always someone ready to give it a go: to mess with Nature.

First of all, find a hanging man.

Step forward our mad scientist for the day, former Golem of this parish, Paul Wegener who plays Professor Jakob ten Brinken who has become interested in the nature versus nurture debate and this has somehow led him onto the legend of the root. By using the mandrake, he hopes to engineer a human being in order to establish “whether the parents’ genetic make-up, has a purely random effect on the offspring.” Can he create something pure and free from hereditary conditioning? I think you know where this is heading.

The professor grows the Mandrake as required and gets his nephew Franz Braun (Iván Petrovich) to help him find a lady of the “lowest order” - Die Dirne (The Whore) played by Mia Pankau - to act as the incubation chamber for the new being. Just as the woman arrives at the Professor’s apartments, turning in shock to see him emerge in white coat, the film jumps forward almost two decades… some sense lost through censoring perhaps?

Oh, mother... Mia Pankau

Alraune ten Brinken (Brigitte Helm) is the fully grown experiment, now at boarding school and is first seen toying with fly as it attempts to escape from a glass of water, she reaches out, not to rescue but to push it back; not the behaviour of a well-educated young woman. There is more to come as she leads her classmates into acts of rebellion, she dances, wears cologne and plants a stage beetle on the mother superior’s robes.

Clearly Alraune has out-grown school and to facilitate her escape has lured a young man, Wölfchen (Wolfgang Zilzer) into loving her: he is to steal money from his family and they are to run away. Once on their train to freedom she orders champagne and starts flirting with a likely lad who spies her from the corridor. Wölfchen tries to fight him off but there’s to be no respite as a troop of circus performers join the train. Alraune is immediately impressed by the magician’s sleight of hand especially when in one sexually obvious moment he lets a mouse run up her skirt; she leans back and looks him straight in the eye when even Bad Maria might think twice.

Paul Wegener and Brigitte Helm

At the circus things move on and Alraune is seen sharing a cigarette with the lion tamer (Louis Ralph) standing so close that she can light his fire with her own as it were. Chided for her wanton troublesome-ness Alraune walks into the lions’ cage challenging the beasts to come and have a go if they think they’re cat enough. The animals don’t move until the Tamer rushes in with his whip.

So, a heartbreaker with nerves of steel and a twisted sado-masochistic streak… is this what the Professor wanted to find out? How would a woman born from the human stew of a prostitute, a murderer and the mysterious root vegetable work out?

He’ll soon be able to find out as he finally catches up on his “daughter” after years of searching. He whisks her off to polite society where she plays tennis with Der Vicomte (handsome John Loder out of The First Born) who soon proposes… But, he’s not the only man to have fallen for Alraune and the Professor blackmails her into staying under his “care”.

He's behind you... 

From this point one it’s a battle between the scientist and his creation and we all know how those usually turn out or do we? The film has more than a few tricks and turns up its sleeve … there’s an irony in the impact of the Professor’s own true “nature” on the “nurture” of his subject perhaps?

 Alraune is worth watching purely for Brigitte Helm’s performance alone. I love her physicality and dancer’s contortions: she seems almost too frail to be an evil thing and yet there’s considerable strength behind her movement as the Professor will find out. She has the range too and whilst it’s fun to watch her evil contortions we also see hints of a growing humanity… or do we? Paul Wegener is pretty good too, mad science-ing with consummate abandon and obsessing intensely about his creation, Frankenstein with a mid-life crisis and unrealistic expectations.

But, as with all the very best silent film screenings, it was the mix of film, music – excellent audience! – and, of course this wonderful venue! There’s more to come at the Barbican in the New Year and here’s to more screenings like this!!

Details on the Barbican website!