This 1929 silent masterpiece stars the sultry Anna May Wong — arguably the first Asian film actress to gain worldwide fame — in her greatest role and final silent film.

This is a melodrama set in a cabaret in the icadilly area of London where Mabel (Gilda Gray) and Victor (Cyril Richard) are the featured dancers. One night a patron gets a dirty dish and starts a ruckus. The owner of the cabaret, Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas), goes into the scullery to find the reason for the dirty dish. He sees a young Chinese scullery maid, Shosho (Anna May Wong), entertaining her fellow kitchen workers with a dance. That same evening he fires Victor who has been annoying Mabel. Soon business suffers as a result of Mabel dancing alone.

	Poster

After many years of supporting roles in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe in search of good roles. And did she find one! Her electric, sexually-charged performance in PICCADILLY is a revelation. Wong is mesmerizing as Shosho, the Chinese scullery maid at a London nightclub who overnight becomes the toast of London — and the object of sexual desire of all around her. The camera adores Wong, and against Alfred Junge’s astonishing set design, she glows on the big screen. As the New York Film Festival writes, “the film is a thrilling cinematographic jewel and a landmark in the emancipation of nonwhite actresses.”

REVIEWS: Photoplay, October, 1929: "Wonder of wonders - a truly fine British picture! Gilda Gray is starred, but Anna May Wong brings home the bacon."

SHANGHAI EXPRESS
(1932)
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Eugene Pallette, Lawrence Grant, Louise Closser Hale, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Emile Chautard, Leonard Carey, Willie Fung, Forrester Harvey, Claude King, James B. Leong, Miki Morita, Minoru Nishida  

It is one of the few Anna May Wong talking pictures available on video. This film, which Marlene Dietrich is the star, portrays Asia as little more than an exotic backdrop for a Hollywood and set in civil-war-torn China. Although she plays only a supporting character, her role is important. It is fascinating to see her talents utilized by a top-notch director like von Sternberg.

What's more, when Anna May stabs a yellow-faced Warner Oland as the Chinese villain, the moment may be seen as an allegory: an Asian American actress "puts the knife to" Hollywood's misrepresentation of her ancestral culture. Film was grandly photographed by Lee Garmes, who won an Oscar for his work. This movie was remade later as "Peking Express." (note: check out the picture listed above with Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong and tell me which one of these gorgeous ladies is the prettiest!?! They both had great beauty, a lot of acting talent, respected by the film community (Frank Capra wanted Anna in some of his films!), worked in many films (Anna worked in over 50+ films), yet their success were vastly different. Has the story changed much since the 1930's? Should they have changed? Why hasn't somebody produced a film on this gorgeous creature name ANNA MAY WONG! Any takers!?!

IRVING THALBERG DIES SEPTEMBER 14, 1936 @ THE AGE OF 37

Sept. 14, 1936: Irving Thalberg, the head of production at MGM, died in his Santa Monica home at the age of 37. Thalberg, who had long suffered from health problems, died of pneumonia, The Times reported. His wife, actress Norma Shearer, "was prostrated with grief," the newspaper said.  The uncredited producer of more than 90 films, including "A Day at the Races," "A Night at the Opera," "Grand Hotel," and "The Good Earth," Thalberg was known as the "Boy Wonder" for his meteoric rise in the industry. He died, The Times said, "at the absolute zenith of his career." "Films were Thalberg's life," read one of numerous tributes in The Times the day after his death. "He lived by them and for them. He crusaded for their welfare. He never would give an inch in his regard for the importance and world significance of the industry of which he was a part." Producer David O. Selznick said that "Irving Thalberg was beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures that we have ever known." Cecil B. DeMille called his death "the greatest conceivable loss to the motion-picture industry." For more info, click HERE.

THE GOOD EARTH
(1939)
Directed by Sidney Franklin
Cast: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch, Charley Grapewin, Jessie Ralph, Soo Yong, Keye Luke, Roland Lui, Suzanna Kim, Ching Wah Lee, Harold Huber, Olaf Hytten, William Law, Mary Wong, Victor Adams, Chester Gan, Bessie Loo, Richard Loo, Charles Middleton

Pearl S. Buck's novel of peasant farmers in China has been brilliantly brought to the screen to create one of the 1930s greatest films. This is one of the very FEW films where it is slightly TOLERABLE, to have non-Asians play the lead roles. Considering the time of the 1930's, it was hard for ANY Chinese and/or Asian to find work. As a result, in two magnificent performances by Paul Muni and Oscar winner Luise Rainer (who portray Wang and O-Lan, respectively), at the story's beginning are first introduced to each other on their wedding day. In a gripping series of events, they endure famine, revolution, the death of a child, betrayal, life as refugees and, in a classic sequence, a swarm of locusts.

The mixing of Asian and Anglo cast members surprisingly detracts nothing from the film's power and credibility with audiences (primarily white, of course). This is due, in no small amount, to Muni and Rainer's portrayals. Franklin's direction is self-assured and his epic stagings of a mass exodus, political riot and the locust swarm are superbly juxtaposed by deeply effecting scenes of interpersonal relationships and familial conflict which would resonate in any language or culture.

Filming The Good Earth
In 1932 Irving Thalberg bought the motion picture rights to Pearl Buck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Good Earth, hoping to "establish a clearer and more sympathetic relationship" between the United States and China. However, Thalberg could not bank on Chinese American actors (i.e. Anna May Wong, etc.) in the starring roles, so he cast Paul Muni as Wang and Louise Ranier as O'lan. Supporting roles featured Ching Wah Lee, Keye Luke and Caroline Chew. Filming took place in and around Los Angeles. When the movie premiered on January 1937, critics hailed it as the most authentic view of Chinese life ever filmed.

Though producer Irving Thalberg sent a crew to China to film scenes for The Good Earth, the film footages were reconstructed in Los Angeles and Northridge.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS 
(1939) 
Directed by William Wyler
Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Hugh Williams, Leo G. Carroll, Miles Mander, Cecil Kellaway, Cecil Humphreys, Sarita Wooton, Rex Downing, Douglas Scott, Alice Ahlers, Frank Benson, Romaine Callender, Vernon Downing, Harold Entwistle, Helena Grant, Sam Harris, Susanne Leach, Tommy Martin, Schuyler Standish, William Stelling, Eric Wilton.  

Hey, wait a minute. What's this movie doing on the list? It's an adaptation of the classic Victorian novel by Emily Brontë. It doesn't have anything to do with Asia. Or does it? In fact, the film's star, Merle Oberon (1911-1979) - aka "Queenie Thompson", is part-Indian. She was born in Bombay to an English father and a Sunhalese mother (born in Ceylon - now Sri Lanka). This lineage gave Oberon her "exotic" looks that British audiences, and later Hollywood audiences, found so fascinating.

	On the Set

What made Oberon's (who was born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson) story of particular interest are the great lengths to which she went to conceal her Asianness. She denied being Indian, cultivated her makeup and lighting to look as pale as possible and even concocted a phony life story that had her born in Australia. Another story to hide her Indian identity parentage, she would falsely represent to visitors that her mother was the maid. The biographer Charles Higham believes that Oberon's perpetuation of this ruse ultimately wore her down emotionally and led to her death at age 68. Oberon's portrayal of Cathy in this highly acclaimed adaptation is probably her best-known and best-loved performance. The film ranked number 73 on the American Film Institute's list of "The 100 Best American Movies," the only entry on that list in which an "Asian" performer gets top billing. (HBO Video)

Wuthering Heights   MERLE OBERON PROFILE: Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson was born in India on February 19, 1911 to a racially mixed Anglo-Indian mother and white Australian father. She was educated in that country until the age of 17 when she arrived in London.   Portrait   Merle began her career in British films with mostly forgettable roles on her part. She appeared in an uncredited role in ALF'S BUTTON in 1930. Unfortunately, Merle would have that trend for the next three years. Finally, in 1933, she landed a part with substance with her role as Ysobel d'Aunay in MEN OF TOMORROW. That was quickly followed by THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII that same year. Up to this point she had been in British films only. After her portrayal of Lady Marguerite Blakeney in THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL in 1934, she came to Hollywood to try her hand at American film making. The US had already had some idea of Merle's talent because they had seen THE BROKEN MELODY which was released in the US as VAGABOND VIOLINIST.     Wuthering Heights With her nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress as Kitty Vane in 1935's THE DARK ANGEL, Merle became a star in both Britain and the US. She appeared in several well received films such as THESE THREE (1936), OVER THE MOON (1937), and THE DIVORCE OF LADY X (1938). In 1939, Merle turned in another masterful performance as Cathy Linton in WUTHERING HEIGHTS. The 1940's proved to be a very busy decade where she appeared in no less than 15 movies. In 1948 she appeared in BERLIN EXPRESS and would not be seen of the screen again until her appearance as Elizabeth Rockwell in PARDON MY FRENCH (1951). Her final film was INTERVAL in 1973. Afterwards, Merle lived in quiet retirement until her death of a massive stroke on November 23, 1979 in Malibu, California. She was 68 and had kept her beauty to the end.

 

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