Season Introduction & Shanghai Express (1932), Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention, BFI

 

Anna Wong, the actor’s niece, never met her aunt but she learned a lot from her father who assured her that his sister had felt fulfilled as she entered her final years after over 80 films and a legacy she must have been aware of by her death in 1961. Few stars have had to work as hard as Anna May Wong to keep working at a high level and, as the series title indicates, this involved a lot of reinvention and hard graft: learning how to dance when dancing was what was expected of you, learning to drop her American accent when in Britain on stage or on screen and learning to spot opportunities and making the sacrifices necessary to grab them. She was tough as well as everything else.

 

Anna was speaking as part of a panel of four providing an introduction for the season ahead with each bringing their own expertise and particular connection with the first Chinese American film star. Season curator Dr Xin Peng, Assistant Professor in Film and Screen Studies at Cambridge University was on hand along with Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll, the essential new biography on AMW which is out now in paperback and in the BFI shop ready for signature. The group were completed by Pamela Hutchinson film writer and historian with a particular interest in the silent era and in the women whose stories are less appreciated than they deserve to be silent film is a crusade all of its own but with Anna May, there are so many wrongs to right for us all.

 

The women took turns in introducing their favourite clips from the actress, starting with Piccadilly selected by Pamela, who chose the clip were the actress is working in the kitchen cleaning dishes but is caught dancing and promptly sacked by the club manager. He later, of course, realises his mistake and she becomes the club’s, and his, main attraction and, in some ways, this story mirrors Anna’s own journey from the sink to the stage and screen. Anna selected Pavement Butterfly for it allowing her aunt to show her range as well as her ability as a clothes horse and dancer – a natural even before training.

Pamela Hutchinson, Anna Wong, Katie Gee Salisbury and Dr Xin Peng

Katie picked another German film, Song, which again allowed Wong to show her “chops” as an actor in the scene in which she pretends to be her knife-throwing partner’s lover allowing the temporarily blinded man to believe she has come to see him – it’s so moving and we see in close-up Anna’s ability to cry on cue… who knows what sadness enabled her to summon tears so readily? By contrast, Xin chose a clip from the all-star review Elstree Calling, this being a parody of Taming of the Shrew, showing Anna’s finesse at pie-throwing whilst dressed in her Piccadilly costume.

 

After success in Europe Anna returned to a two-film contract with Paramount starting with Daughter of Shanghai (1931) as Fu Man Chu’s daughter and then, tonight’s main event, Shanghai Express (1932) in which, as we shall see, she makes the absolute most of her part even having to compete for screen attention alongside Dietrich. Sadly, her obvious strengths continued to be ignored by a Hollywood and US society in transition for want of a better word. She returned to Europe, not for the first or last time, as she continued to fight for her identity and her career.

 

As the panel showed with her later talkies, Wong may not always have had a leading role but she seems always to have made her roles leading and was a dynamic presence in each of the clips we saw no matter how much submerged in the constraints of cliché. She was a formidable woman; she was relentless and she made herself count. We shall learn a lot more over the next month or so.

 

Anna & Marlene...*

Shanghai Express (1932)

 

In her introduction, Katie Gee Salisbury asked for a show of hands for those who had seen our main feature and I was among the large minority who had not and it did not disappoint on the big screen. Marlene I know, von Sternberg too but this is one of those films for which the term “classic” was invented with the Austrian directing his light and shadow with swaggering invention and bringing out the best from his cast in one of the great train mysteries. Dietrich takes the breath away with her sorrowful wit and no one ever captured her fine features the way Josef did and his DOC, Lee Games who won the Academy Award. There’s a moment when she’s leaning against the wall of her compartment, allowing the rising smoke of her cigarette to twist and turn over her brightly lit face which gives us so little of what she’s thinking that we’re lost in the examination… all she asks is to be believed and we all have the faith by the end.

 

Alongside her are the chiselled and slightly stiff features of our own Clive Brook, his equally stilted sonorous voice redeemed by his character’s febrile confusion around Marlene’s Shanghai Lil. His upper lip couldn’t be any stiffer but underneath his professional cool, Captain Donald “Doc” Harvey is about as mad about the girl as he can be it’s been five years and four weeks when the two meet again on the Shanghai Express but he’s never stopped and neither has she… they just need to believe in each other.

 

How could anyone steal a scene in such circumstances, let alone provide some of the key moments of this film? Well, if you’re not familiar, it’s possible with the look, the physicality and purposeful delivery of Anna May Wong. As Pam said in the previous session, Anna knows how to handle the moments between dialogue, and she can make even solitaire look like a deadly game. Von Sternberg realised this and places her so often in the corner of his scenes, drawing our eye to her keen observation and intensity through the frame of carriage windows as characters move back and forth, shifting in importance and meaning.

 

The director choreographs both actresses very well but it’s Anna’s movements that are the most potent, she’s a woman of agency and, unlike so many other characters she played, she is not here to provide oriental adornment or be the tragic loss that foreshadows the central lovers. The chemistry between her and Dietrich also makes this a female buddy movie, they’re “coasters” making their living in the rich resorts along the south China coast but they also look after each other, see the same moves and instinctively act in tandem. Not so much Thelma and Louise as Butch and Sundance… with a 78-rpm portable turntable playing some high-energy jazz that buzzes them down as it imposes their presence on the other travellers.

 

The real chemistry is between the two women whatever Lil does with Doc, there’s something enabled by von Sternberg but created entirely by Marlene and Anna that you very rarely see in this era and it speaks to the strength and intelligence of both performers. They present more than can be possibly interpreted in one viewing, purposefully enigmatic and completely controlled and the only truly serious characters in a film featuring a clutch of lovely supporting caricatures. That’s not to say that these walking sub-plots are not all expertly worked from Eugene Pallet’s wonderfully raspy gambling man to Gustav von Seyffertitz’ grumbly German hypochondriac and Lawrence Grant’s perpetually outraged Reverend Carmichael. Then there’s Émile Chautard as the French Major with a sad secret, Louise Closser Hale as the English lady smuggling her nervous pooch and the familiar “yellow face” of Warner Oland, here a revolutionary and later the “Chinese detective” Charlie Chan.

Oland stands out in a film that aims for authenticity and there’s none more so than Anna May Wong who shows exactly how to make the most of every second of screen time. It’s a shame that Hollywood wouldn’t give her the chance to develop as a leading actor, especially in a decade in which white actors continued to play oriental roles in make-up**. America’s loss was Europe’s gain as we shall see as this celebration of her talent, determination and reinvention unfolds.

 

Full details of the season are here on the BFI website: do not miss this!!

  

Katie Gee Salisbury introduces in NFT1

*Nope... They worked well together but they were not together according to Katie Gee Salisbury and others. Ms Dietrich's liaisons were generally freely admitted and publicly documented.

**The Good Earth (1937) featured Paul Muni and Luise Rainer in Oscar-winning yellowface… Wong was considered for her role but Hays Code anti-miscegenation rules meant that Muni’s wife had to be played by another white person. Anna was offered another role but she refused saying: “You’re asking me – with Chinese blood – to do the only unsympathetic role in a picture featuring ab all-American cast portraying Chinese characters?” This quote is as per Kenneth Quan in his profile on the star on Asia Pacific Arts.

 

Passion play… Underworld (1927) with Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope

After the festivals… another mini-masterpiece of programming at the Cinema Museum and a reminder of the power and the passion that fuels our interest in silent cinema made all the more poignant by the current threat to this unique venue. The owners of the property in which the Museum is located are putting it up for sale to property developers and threatening its future but the resistance is being mobilised and details are below…

Underworld is one of the great films with three searing performances from Evelyn Brent, George Bancroft and Clive Brook – a testament to their skills as well as the ability of their rookie director to overcome his nerves and deliver. Feathers, Bull and Rolls Royce are the beating heart of this story and whilst it is nominally a gangster movie it is really all about love, loyalty and compassion.

What does Bancroft’s Bull sense in Brook’s Wendel, a drunken bum of a fallen lawyer, that makes him trust his promise to be the “Rolls Royce” of silence… Why does he stick his neck out to protect Rolls Royce from "Buck" Mulligan’s bullying? He senses integrity and a steadfast character despite all Rolls’ faults, he may waver – everyone does – but there’s redemption in faith.

No, here's looking at you George!

Feathers also puts loyalty to Bull above love, she’s drawn to Rolls Royce, especially once he’s re-acquainted himself with the routines of personal hygiene… and the two wage a struggle with themselves. Bull too is tested by hate and the red heat of jealousy but once he understands it’s a lesson worth his life…

Von Sternberg stated later that the film was “an experiment in photographic violence and montage…” and was matter of fact about its crowd-pleasing elements. Kevin Brownlow in his introduction, shared his experience of meeting the former Joey Sternberg (the “von” was adopted from von Stroheim, a director who influenced Josef in terms of his on-set authority) and telling him how much he liked the scene with Bull feeding a cat milk as the cops gather outside; that’s the worst moment in the film replied the director. We disagree.

Rolls Royce spots Feathers for the first time...

Writer Ben Hecht, a street-wise journalist, was also dismissive of von Sternberg’s end product until he won an academy award for his script… The film was a smash hit and helped kick off the gangster film craze of the era with the director’s vision and those three leads creating an alchemy that was far from accidental.

Von Sternberg cuts to the chase and seems little bothered in conventional pacing. The film begins in the middle of a robbery as Bull Weed runs from a bank only to find Wensel identifying him and blocking his path… within minutes the two men are established in relation to each other. Feather’s first appearance is a tour de force of Peeping Tom visuals as Evelyn Brent stands atop the stairs of the Dreamland bar, casually adjusting her stockings and with those feathers wrapped around her, magnifying and obscuring her allure: she’s soft but hard and impossible to ignore. A single feather falls, and Rolls Royce watches it drift to the ground… one of the great entrances and as portends go, a real doozy.

Evelyn is a prototypical Marlene, lit with great care throughout and with dozens of killer close ups of eagle eyes and that distinctive profile. Brent became typecast as a gangster but there was so much going on behind those eyes… a few years younger and she could have been a real force in the thirties… but so it goes.

Also pinning down a future on the dark side is the magnificent George who is outrageously hearty throughout - a lion heart who rules his patch through force of will, guts and being quickest on the draw. He’s ferocious and smart too, smart enough to know what an asset Rolls Royce can be, no wonder he calls him the Professor. And the Professor is probably the most like us and indeed Josef, someone to contextualise the villains and a fellow traveller in this onscreen trip to the underworld.

Meg Morley played along with some crashing noir-ish minor chords and jazz-tinged lines that were so Chicago 1927… her playing got right to the heart of the film and was as bold as Bancroft and as deceptively fearsome as Feathers.

There was also very impressive undercard tonight with three powerful shorts…

Segundo's Spectre in 1907...

James Finlayson featured as an easily-distracted husband in Chasing the Chaser (1925) directed by a Mister Stanley Laurel. James’ character just can’t keep himself from chasing women and his long-suffering wife sets a honey-trap using a cross-dressing detective – now there’s an idea for a TV 'tec series… John Sweeney was on hand to add subtle flavours to Finlayson’s flirting.

Segundo de Chomón’s spellbinding The Red Spectre (1907) is a stencil-coloured mini-masterpiece showing the battle between the red devil of the title and a female foe… needless to say he loses. It features some startling trick shots and close-ups. Lillian Henley cast some music spells of her own with her accompaniment.

Elmer Booth in 1912

The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) featured the magnetic Cagney-esque presence of Elmer Booth and that famous close-up as he creeps up on his rivals… A Griffith innovation according to some but clearly not so a Segundo’s Spectre had just demonstrated. Still, all the same, the guy has some class and you wonder at what he could have done had his life not been cut short by an auto accident in 1915. John Sweeney guided us through the streets of downtown New York as the gangs hunt each other in a tense finale… If Underworld kick-started the gangster vogue this is one of the earliest examples of what was to come and it even featured real gangsters...

These nights at the Kennington Bioscope are a privilege and the Cinema Museum is such a warm venue; we’re surrounded by friends and the physical evidence of social history… there can be nowhere else like this place. The Chaplin family lived here when it was a workhouse, it helped keep our greatest silent comedian alive to become the man he was and now it helps sustain his memory and that of so many others.

The Cinema Museum

If the best modern Britain can offer is to sell it on and close it down to earn a few thousand for the failing government and rather more for the developers who are blighting London with soulless modernity then the gangster mentality will have won after all.

But we’re not going to go down easily and there’s plenty of love, loyalty and passion left for the museum.

You can sign a petition here to keep the Cinema Museum alive and there is a public meeting on Monday 30^th October at the museum to discuss the ways forward.

A night in the museum

I can also recommend Lynn Kear’s book on Feathers: Evelyn Brent: The Life and Films ofHollywood’s Lady Crook which celebrates its subject’s career and the moxie which led her to make such a success of being the bad girl!

Clara's baby… Children of Divorce (1927) on Blu-ray

“Gary’s such a big boy, so strong, so manly and so bashful, I always wanna rumple his hair an’ listen to all his troubles.” Clara Bow

Clara Bow in Blu-ray high-definition and the clearest possible view of her soon-to-be-stellar co-star, Gary Cooper; what could possibly go wrong?!

Even in her annus mirabilis when every single film topped the charts from Mantrap, Kid Boots to It! – it was recognised that Miss Bow needed better scripts to fully reach her potential. Sadly, much as it tries, Children of Divorce was not to be it... Joseph von Sternberg was brought in to re-shoot and re-direct the ending and whilst elements of the work received high praise – Clara’s soon-to-be-ex, Victor Fleming saying that the final sequence was amongst the greatest in cinema – overall the audience is left unsatisfied by characters with obscure motivations. The film tries to make a serious point about the importance of family life and the damage done by un-committed parenting but… it feel half-hearted and more concerned with the big dramas of duty.

Clara

All this said, what it does have is the magical realism of Clara Bow – an “expression-engine” who could break the heart of the most cynical viewer with a quicksilver intensity possessed by few other performers. Next to her, the ridiculously handsome Coop struggles to get beyond mildly forlorn or slightly distracted… he’s eye-catching alright but not really enough to draw your focus from Clara.

Stories abound of Bow getting her beau-to-be the part in this film and/or fighting for him to keep it after a stinker of a start. There is still no denying his own potent star appeal but Clara’s was in full burn and Coop was still learning the ropes alongside this sexual superpower. As he said in an off-set interview: “…you couldn’t steal scenes from Clara Bow. Nobody could… She just naturally walks away with every scene she’s in.”

Mr Cooper

He was also up against the equally lovely and capable Esther Ralston.

Esther is so polished and focused and knows exactly how to present face to camera whereas Cooper is often at unflattering angles. The big galoot has charm to burn possessing what Colleen Moore called “that peculiar personality, that intangible quality that communicates on camera…” Yet here, in terms of craft, he’s miles behind Ralston who glides with effortless sadness through the film. Her Jean is the only character really sure of herself around whom Bow’s impulsive Kitty and Cooper’s confused Ted struggle to make the right choices.

Ralston knows how to pose for intense close-ups and works the camera so well throughout. There was a lot for Coop to learn.

Esther Ralston

The film had five writers and it shows with a wayward central message about damaging divorce and also the need for socially convenient marriage getting in the way of emotional fulfilment: we – or rather the upper set – marry for money and do not always follow their hearts. Sadness and despair can be the only result.

The film starts in a de-facto orphanage for the sons and daughters of divorced ex-pats living in Paris and it is here that a young Kitty (Joyce Coad) is dropped off by her mother, (Hedda Hopper in her acting days), who tells her she’ll see her in the Summer – that’s a long time out of the way. She is befriended by the young Jean (Yvonne Pelletier) who provides the unqualified affection her parents cannot. Soon they meet a fiery young boy, Ted Larrabee, who forms a strong attachment to Jean…

Soul sisters

Fast-forward some years to a party at a country house where Kitty (now Clara) entertains the smart set including the titled but broke Prince Ludovico de Saxe (Einar Hanson) who loves her but cannot afford to marry her. Sailing impressively over a hedge on horseback is Ted (now Coop) who lands impressively to gulp down a glass of champagne from Kitty. This scene took some 23 takes according to Bow biographer David Stenn and almost got Cooper fired.

Enter the grown-up Jean (Esther), now very wealthy and a target for any cash-strapped socialite but wealth is the furthest thing on Ted’s mind as is transfixed. Kitty bounds over, as she will many times, to push herself between the two and poor Prince ‘Vito dies a little more inside.

Vito dying a little more...

Jean still loves Ted but wants him to make something of himself before they can consummate their childhood pledge to wed. Kitty loves Jean but also wants to marry into success and if she can’t afford have the man she loves, that’s the Prince, she’ll take the next best thing once Ted has become a success as a bridge-building architect.

Kitty arranges a party starting at Ted’s office and ending up the following morning with the biggest hangover imaginable for, even though Ted struggles to remember, the two got married at the culmination of the previous night’s revels.

WHAT a hang-over!

It’s the worst of timings as Jean has written to Ted saying that maybe they should marry but chance has gone and she sentences herself to noble exile in Paris in order to give Kitty a chance at happiness…

Some years later Kitty and Ted along with their well-cast daughter – the spit of a juvenile Bow -  arrive in Paris and this convoluted quadrangle of love is about to come crashing down around their sad heads.

There are some bold images in the closing segment – perhaps from von Sternberg – but… no spoilers! Overall the main director Frank Lloyd works competently with the narrative in spite of a repeated need to flash back to the younger versions of Jean and Kitty as if to remind us that the child is mother to the woman.

But the restoration is super quality and you can’t fail to be moved by the three leads especially and of course, Clara Bow. When those sad eyes open wide and Klieg lights giving her ample tears a powerful glow, you’d have to be made of stone not to feel more than a little welling up of your own.

There a cracking score from the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra which incorporates contemporary songs within a carefully crafted whole: for instance, JS Zamecnik’s Heart of Dreams is a recurring theme beginning as the youngsters become friends and returning for every key moment.

To top it all the set also includes the Discovering the It Girl documentary narrated by Courtney Love which, if you haven’t seen it features contributions from David Stenn, Diana Serra Cary (Baby Peggy) and Clara’s son, Rex Bell Jnr.

Children of Divorce in excellent production from Flicker Alley and is available direct. It deserves to do well and let's hope for more Blu-ray Bow in the near future!

Buy it! Buy it NOW!