Happy 100th Birthday Jackie Coogan

This year's Scorpio Birthday Tribute is a special one because it's not only in honor of one of my favorite silent film stars but it's also his Centennial Birthday, the one and only Jackie Coogan. F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked that there are no second acts in life, but Coogan not only disproved that by having a second one, but an enormously popular third one.

I'll bypass a full-fledged biography on Jackie Coogan and simply talk about his work in films. Let's start with the first phase of his career as a child actor and one of the brightest lights in silent films. Many of his movies as a little kid were mostly comedies, beginning with a small part in Charlie Chaplin's short "A Day's Pleasure" (1917), one of his best. Two years later he starred in Chaplin's classic "The Kid", where Jackie plays a child raised by Charlot in a glass selling scam by smashing in windows so Charlie can sell his glass plates.

Jackie, only six years old, had a natural talent for comedy with an equal knack for drama, and his talent provided a hit for the then-troubled Chaplin, who had the smuggle prints of the film past several states from being confiscated.

A year later he starred in "Oliver Twist" opposite the legendary Lon Chaney, who played Fagin. It was said that Coogan was afraid of the wild eyed Chaney who had to things down a notch or two once the cameras stopped rolling to gain the friendship of little Jackie.

Unfortunately, prints of his classic comedy "Circus Days" (1922) are lost with a few surviving scenes available on the Warner Bros' DVD of Charles Chaplin's classic comedy "The Circus". Jackie plays Toby Tyler, a character later made famous by Walt Disney on television, however, Jackie plays the character with a better feel for slapstick than the Disney version.

At the peak of his popularity, Coogan was the highest paid child star of his time, making $2,000 a week as salary with his parents as the trustees.

What was saved, however, by Turner Classic Movies, is "The Rag Man" (1925), where Jackie plays the crafty runaway orphan Timothy Aloysius Michael Patrick Kelly, who befriends a tired old Jewish junk dealer played by the great Max Ginsberg. By now Jackie was ten and growing but still adorable and funny. His constant negotiating and wheeling and dealing with an old East Side Jew on the streets of New York is very funny.

By the mid-thirties Coogan suffered two major tragedies: (1) His father and best friend died in an automobile accident with him as the only survivor; and, (2) His discovery that his mother and step-father spent every penny of his child-star earnings. Both tragedies sent him towards a downspin complicated by heavy drinking.

A three-year marriage to Betty Grable resulted in Coogan raising the ire of MGM mogul Leo B. Mayer, who offered Coogan a 7-picture deal, which Coogan turned down and earned a blacklist from the monstrous Mayer. Coogan didn't work in films for another eight years.

It's at this point that Coogan's career becomes even more interesting, because Phase Two of the Jackie Coogan Story has our hero acting in the Fifties doing mostly exploitation schlock classics like Mesa of Lost Women, where he played the mad scientist Dr. Aranya (joined by Dolores Fuller!). Now that Coogan had lost most of his pretty hair he had the freedom to play mostly bad guys and psychos, attacking every role with nutty abandon.

A string of wild late-Fifties psychotronic dementia followed, all illuminated by Coogan's demented presence: Eighteen and Anxious, The Space Children, but he really hit pay dirt when he joined producer Albert Zugsmith's cast of off-the-wall players Mamie Van Doren, Steve Cochran, Vampira, John Drew Barrymore, Jock Mahoney, and an endless cattle call of Hollywood star babies (Harold Lloyd, Jr.!!!!)

You've seen at least two or three of these crazy films: Sex Kittens Go To College - Jackie plays a rich tycoon using an unfunny W.C. Fields voice while Mamie plays the busty, brainy college professor, The Beat Generation - Jackie's a cop who has to put on the drag during a stakeout with his partner Steve Cochran (comedy gold), Night of the Quarter Moon - directed by the great Hugo Haas!, but the magnum opus of that period has to be High School Confidential, where he plays the sinister Mr. A, resplendent in dark badass shades and heroin pusher to the high school kids at his hipster jazz club.

But alas, the sleaze stands alone and the well dried up for high school crime flicks so Jackie did a bunch of sporadic TV appearances for the next four years, until he reached Phase Three of his career and arguably the role he's still notorious for, the role of Uncle Fester on The Addams Family (1964).

Some of Coogan's best comedy work is on The Addams Family and a lot of fans even say he steals many of the scenes he's in because he's that good. Coogan's signature comedy shtick on the film was to stick a light bulb in his mouth and immediately have it light up. Kids would tune in every week to see what he's say and do next. He was the Soupy Sales of Goth!

The bizarre irony of the Uncle Fester character was that Coogan wore a thick sweater virtually identical to the one he wore forty years earlier in "The Rag Man", making virtually the same smiles he did back then but now older and more worn out. Also ironic about his popularity is that although he was once a child star he now had every child in America following him just like the Twenties.

But nothing spells closure to the Three Acts of Jackie Coogan's career than the day his old boss Charlie Chaplin returned to the United States after 20 years to accept a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award. Upon arrival at LAX he saw Jackie Coogan there to greet him and hugged his once young co-star. He turned to Coogan's wife and said, "Never forget that your husband is a genius". From million dollar kid to exploitation films to TV horror comedy, Jackie Coogan always delivered.

Now Playing ABSOLUTELY FREE on You Tube

Once upon a time, well a few years ago I wrote a periodic blog called "Stuff I Burned From TCM" which was a regular round-up of movies I burned off the TV set from Turner Classic Movies because they weren't available on video. TCM probably caught wind of that happening too often so now they're in the business of selling overpriced dubs of these films.

Well, there are still a ton of things you can't buy from TCM but you can definitely see for absolutely free on You Tube, and not just scattered film clips but the movies in their entirety. You can even save them and burn them, too. Life is wonderful!

In addition to the movies listed below I've also burned dozens of Heckle & Jeckle cartoons (Fifties Terrytoons genius) and a funny Shemp Howard solo short called "Mr. Noisy", where the moonlighting Stooge spends all his leisure time heckling tennis players, golfers and baseball pitchers at the top of his lungs. Wicked!

Alias Nick Beal (1949) Ray Milland breaks the bank playing a demonic apparition who helps a civic minded District Attorney (Thomas Mitchell) with framing a untouchable racketeer and consequently tempting him with a shot at the Governor's race, seal with a pact.

Many of the scenes with Mitchell and Milland either takes place on a foggy wharf or in some oceanfront dive (Don Burnham returns!). Of course, no noir is complete without a femme fatale so the great Audrey Totter provides a moral base, veering from dockside slut transformed by Beal into a politico temptress, a la Monica Lewinsky.

Totter delivers a great, convincing performance in her two phases but it's clearly evident that this is Milland's show all the way. He plays The Devil with great relish and seems to enjoy himself quite a bit playing a nasty, evil spirit.

Asphalt (1929) is a German silent film classic directed by Joe May, and if you liked the Louise Brooks classics "Pandora's Box" and "Diary Of A Lost Girl" you'll very likely enjoy this one, too. The film begins with breathtaking scenes of Berlin night life in the Twenties with the serpentine underworld slithering through the crime-ridden streets.

Joining in the larceny is Else Kramer, played by the great Betty Amann (shown above), conning an old jeweler with seductive behavior. While she's teasing the old fogey out of his diamonds we see a big, dumb lug of street cop Albert Holk (Gustav Frolich of "Metropolis") doing his boring job of guiding cars across the street.

After Else is accused of swiping diamonds in the store they grab a cop down the street, and the next thing you know Officer Holk takes Else in for booking. Unfortunately, Else turns on the water works in the cab and persuades Officer Holk to take her to her flat first so she can grab a few of her things.

She turns on the charm and the cognac and Office Holk finds himself in bed with the criminal. Was their love making real or was it just another con job pulled by Else? It's hard to tell especially since her current boyfriend, a big-shot criminal busts in on them later and things come to a deadly head.

Asphalt is another great film about an honest man fallen from grace by a demonic woman. The Germans seem to be fond of this plot since The Blue Angel mind the same territory with dramatically different results.

Amann may not be as endearing as Brooks or as humorous as Dietrich but had she moved to the States she probably would have had a great career as a film noir femme fatale. If you like great silent films then Asphalt should be at the top of your list (right after Piccadilly).

Woman On The Run (1950) An excellent noir completely owned by Ann Sheridan as you've never seen her before. After playing the reliably good girl in so many Warner Bros. films in the Forties she becomes a nasty bitch in this film, looking and behaving a great deal like Rita Hayworth did in "Lady From Shanghai".

The great irony of the story is that the real person "on the run" is Sheridan's husband who suffers from major paranoia after witnessing a drive-by shooting. Since Ann is the only one who can lead the police to a husband she hates she builds up a hard as nails attitude. You wonder who she has more contempt for: her husband or the authorities.

Filmed almost entirely on the streets of San Francisco, portions of the film almost verge on being some lo-fi travelogue, Ann hitting the pavement of Market Street, Fisherman's Wharf and old North Beach. The street scenes put the location shots of "D.O.A." to shame!

What makes the film so brilliant, however, is the way both the police detective, played by Robert Keith, and the pesky news reporter, played by Dennis O'Keefe, force her to give them more and more information about her much hated husband. The woman on the run flees the streets of Frisco Town like a demented harpy confessing her feelings about a man she once loved.

The great climax to this film takes place on a roller coaster in an amusement park (shades of "The Burglar"!). Robert Keith you'll recognize as the small town sheriff in "The Wild One" and Dennis O'Keefe is great as usual just as he was in the Anthony Mann noirs "Raw Deal" and "T-Men". Highly recommended!

Happy Birthday Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake

Somehow the idea of wishing someone a happy birthday who’s deceased is kind of like showing up to a party thirty minutes after its ended, but there has never been two actresses more unorthodox than Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake, this year’s Scorpio birthdays. On first glance they don’t seem to have much in common, but upon closer inspection are very similar.

Both Ms. Brooks and Lake share the same birthday, November 14 – different years, of course, but their lives were very closely alike. Professionally both actresses were as adept at doing comedy as they were in drama, work was hard to come by, and their careers were heavily battered by studio systems that were too simple-minded to utilize them properly. The negligence that damaged their careers culminated in serious bouts of alcoholism and misanthropy that would make a riot grrl run home to Momma.

Still and all, the fact that Brooks and Lake are now regarded as major glamour icons of the cinema is highly ironic, an irony definitely not lost on them. As Veronica Lake once said, “I’m not a sex symbol, I’m a sex zombie”.

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Although Brooks was recognized by French cinephiles in the 1950’s for her amazing screen presence she was widely forgotten worldwide until she published her memoirs, “Lulu In Hollywood”, in 1981. Her candid account of Hollywood’s golden age and working relationships with legends like Fatty Arbuckle, W.C. Fields and John Wayne were off-beat, revealing and occasionally shocking.

Her early career includes some cool comedy turns from her with W.C. Fields in “The Old Army Game” and “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em” (both 1926) where she plays the roommate from hell, stealing her friend’s boyfriends and snaking all their dresses. It’s kind of a slapstick “Single White Female”. In 1928 she made a fine drama for neorealist director William Wellman called “Beggars of Life”, which also starred Noah Beery and Richard Arlen. A year later she went to Germany and starred in her two greatest films, “Pandora’s Box” and “Diary Of A Lost Girl”, both available on DVD.

A typical Louise Brooks performance showed a woman who effortlessly vascillated between acting like a frenetic little girl, sexy vamp, and illuminated angel all in a matter of seconds, like some enchanted flicker ring. This could either be attributed to great acting or as the product of a personality scarred by a childhood episode of being molested by a neighbor and receiving no sympathy from her mother.

After turning down the James Cagney classic “The Public Enemy” (which eventually went to Jean Harlow), Brooks had trouble finding work, eventually opening up an unsuccessful dance studio, a stab at writing a novel (never finished), a Saks Fifth Avenue counter girl, and unfortunately ending up as a pilled-up Manhattan call girl. Several marriages failed, but through it all she was always close to her brother, her only friend until her death in 1985 from a heart attack due to emphysema.

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While Veronica Lake didn’t earn the enmity of the entire state of Kansas like Brooks did, she just about pissed off everybody else. Married four times to Louise Brooks’ two, she turned off every leading man in her films, with the sole exception of Alan Ladd. Lake made four films with Ladd because she was shorter than him – she stood at 4’11 ½”. Like Brooks, her comedy chops are underrated, based upon her great performances in “Sullivan’s Travels” and “I Married A Witch”, the O.G. “Bewitched”. She even has some excellent deadpan humor lines in “The Blue Dahlia”, thanks to Raymond Chandler’s screenplay. (Chandler allegedly hated her, too. You just can’t win!) Just about the only guy on her side in Hollywood was Preston Sturges, who fought the studios to cast her in “Sullivan’s Travels”, her first major movie role. She was pregnant during filming, posing a serious undercover challenge for designer Edith Head.

The public loved Lake until the late Forties, when Paramount passed on renewing her contract. She had to file for bankruptcy on the heels of her mother suing her for “support payments”. Her mother later wrote an awful biography on her daughter which pulled in a tiny chunk of change. Lake wrote a slapdash autobiography a few years later as a rebuttal to her mother’s tawdry book.

Lake, like her predecessor Brooks went through a downward spiral in New York, living in fleabag hotels and getting arrested for drunken and disorderly conduct. Her beautiful long locks now long gone, she found work as a barmaid at a downtown hotel. Busted by reporters who found her working there, she garnered sporadic TV and theater gigs from all the attention, even appearing on “What’s My Line”.

Veronica Lake died in Vermont at the age of 50 from hepatitis and acute renal failure as a result of her alcoholism. Her ashes were scattered over The Virgin Islands per her request. A memorial service was held in New York which her son Michael attended, her three daughters long estranged from her.

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I hate tired Hollywood clichés but there is one that sometimes rings true, and that’s when someone says “The camera loves her”, and it was definitely hypnotized by these two ladies. Whatever Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake’s faults were, there are few actresses that can rival their ability to illuminate the movie screen. That means when Louise Brooks celebrates Christmas in a cold cellar in “Pandora’s Box” we forget how hard her situation is because the warmth of her beauty is enough. That means whenever Veronica Lake is on screen in “The Blue Dahlia” or “This Gun For Hire” everyone else disappears because she commands your absolute attention. That’s no small accomplishment for a dame that can’t even clear 5 feet.

Whether these ladies got along with the car crash we call civilization or not almost seems unimportant. Aspiring actresses, clothes designers, filmmakers, models, and even artists can tell you what Louise Brooks looks like or what Veronica Lake looks like. Their hypnotic beauty is immortalized by the silver screen, and for that we will always revere them.

Love It To Death

It’s ironic that a group of wholesome Catholic school boys from Arizona would form a band called Alice Cooper and manage to push every religious button possible. With song titles like “Second Coming”, “Hallowed Be My Name”, and “Dead Babies”, to this day they still render efforts from lesser talents like Marilyn Manson as ineffectual.

I caught Alice Cooper at The Hollywood Bowl on the “School’s Out” tour (1972) with the opening act being Flo & Eddie, the “200 Motels”-era Mothers without Frank Zappa. It was a great show and didn’t lack a milligram of drama, not always by the hand of Alice and his amazing friends. As my friend and I ran up the hill to get to the show there were scores of Jesus Freaks hanging around the not-so-pearly-gates of The Hollywood Bowl. Guys brandishing Bibles, grabbing you, “Please, I beg of you, DO NOT GO IN, Alice Cooper is Satan, an agent of evil, pray with me”.
“Gotta go! I wanna hear Under My Wheels!”

Next guy, this one with tears in his eyes, “Beware of false idols like Alice Cooper, you need Jesus Christ, The World’s Greatest Rock Star, as it is written in Corinthians 5:16, BLAHBLAHBLAH!”
“Let go, I wanna see Alice in a guillotine!”
“Jesus died for your sins, Alice Cooper will make you sin and sin again!”
“God bless Alice Cooper!”
“NO! NO! GOD DOESN’T LIKE ALICE COOPER!”

The show was so not evil, in fact it was silly, the band did a goofy “West Side Story” routine on stage pantomiming a knife fight, almost as gay as Russ Tamblyn with his pants pulled down. But it was still priceless rock trash!

One of the highlights of the show was a helicopter flying over The Bowl dropping more of those crazy panties you got with the album (made of the same material as Handi-Wipes). Jesus Christ on a helicopter!

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In the late Eighties/early Nineties all the rock drama took place at Hully Gully Rehearsal Studios in Silver Lake. No night club or rock star hangout could compete with the overall dementia that went down there. My band Trash Can School rehearsed every Sunday night in Room 1 with The Nymphs in Room 2 and The Cramps in Studio B. I remember one night when The Cramps rehearsed “Shortenin’ Bread” over and over again. You’d hear them playing just the intro for half an hour, then the full song for another 30 and then they’d take a much deserved break and back to that cycle again. I think they threw in “Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?” and a fast version of “Heartbreak Hotel” and boom! they were out of there. Lux in sunglasses paced the office snapping his fingers while Ivy, also in sunglasses paid for the room and set up the next rehearsal booking. This was around midnight, of course.

Sam Kinison was a regular there, too, coming in with his entourage, some of them genuine metal guys, some struggling comics, and others just drug flunkies. Since rehearsal time is paid for in blocks of three hours it was safe to say that perhaps thirty minutes of those three hours was spent with music coming out of the room and the other two-and-a-half with partying. Since Hully Gully was an anonymous, unmarked building straight off Interstate 5 it was probably easier to party at than at his home. The struggling comics that would hang out with him were by and large the angriest, most humorless fucks I’ve ever met. And fucking ugly, too.

But it got darker, too. A very famous metal band I can’t mention, here’s a clue, it rhymes with M*gaD*th booked Studio A. The leader of the band was prone to getting into knock-down, drag-out fights with the other band members. You could hear them screaming in the other room and these rooms were pretty sound-proofed. This band leader, we’ll call him MegaPoodle Hair, had a tendency to freebase and hang out in the room after rehearsals. One night a new attendant went in to clean up the room and lock up when MegaPoodle Hair nervously approached him with a gun aimed at his head. “Fuck you man, get out, you ain’t rippin’ us off I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off”. The poor kid freaked out and ran out letting MegaPoodle Hair twitch it out for the rest of the night.

Of course this drama was eclipsed by the even bigger drama that was Jabber Jaw, the little coffee house that became a night club. The second home to Courtney Love, The Dwarves and Kurt (“I’m famous leave me alone”) Cobain, Hully Gully’s drama couldn’t stand a chance.

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Silent movies mean couples, and lots of them. When I attended the Silent Movie Theatre in 1981 I was always greeted by The Hamptons, an elderly couple that ran the theatre. Mrs. Hampton took tickets and sold candy, while Mr. Hampton ran the films in the projection booth and occasionally checked the facility while the movie was playing. Another couple I always ran into was John Doe and Exene of X, fresh from the popularity of their album “Wild Gift”. We attended the movies every Monday night and sometimes they would drag Billy Zoom or D.J. Bonebrake with them. It was cool.

The Silent Theatre was one of the most primitive theater-going experiences ever: A crudely painted sign on paint-peeling wood –black on white, natch with a panel missing – spelled THE SILENT THE- and that was it. The front didn’t have lobby cards but a simple ink drawing of Charlie Chaplin with a few quaint stills of The Keystone Cops, Laurel and Hardy and Tom Mix. The front door had a little booth, you walked through and a tiny wet bar served as a snack bar. The staircase leading upstairs had a locked door because the Hamptons lived upstairs. On a clear day you could see their apartment window from Fairfax High across the street. The theatre itself was fairly Spartan: hard wooden seats, minimal lighting, and canned hot Twenties jazz playing during the movies unless it was a class picture, then they’d pipe in some Tchaikovsky. The bathroom in the “lobby” was a tiny water closet, only big enough to fit one ass at a time.

The Silent Theatre played the same program all week long except Sundays (closed) and admission was only $2, a steal even back then. It didn’t help much to bolster business, though, because the theatre was pretty dead on Mondays. The Hamptons’ film library was healthy so there wasn’t much in the way of repetition: a few silent cartoons (Felix The Cat – he didn’t talk and had no magic bag), some comedy shorts and then the main feature, Chaplin, Keaton, Gish, Barrymore, not a lot of oaters (cowboy movies) and not a lot of foreign shit. They might have played “The Golem” a week before Rosh Hashanah, but that’s it. Right before Christmas they played “King of Kings” and come Halloween you could count on Lon Chaney ruling the roost.

A few years later a new guy, Laurence Austin, showed up at the theatre helping out and running things because Mr. Hampton was in the hospital, and I remember him as a pretty friendly guy. He was also instrumental in getting investors for the theatre for some way overdue upgrades and had the admission price raised ($5 – sacrilege!). Nobody minded paying more because the theatre was much loved. I stopped going there after awhile because better prints were being shown at LACMA, The New Beverly Theatre, etc. VHS and DVD made the scene, too. In 1996 Mr. Austin was shot to death inside the theatre by a hitman hired by Austin’s projectionist/lover who was allegedly promised a $1 million inheritance.

Nowadays if I want to see an awesome silent film I’ll catch it on Turner Classic Movies. The last one I saw was a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Magician”, brilliant stuff and not available on DVD.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 10

TCM has decided to somewhat circumvent the movie burners by issuing a series of DVDs called “The Warner Archive Collection”, which is no better than what we fans do at home. In fact, they’re not even DVDs, but DVD-R’s, just like us, and they’re bare-bones releases, i.e. no special features, no commentaries, nothing. It’s as if TCM/Warner Bros. authorized some guy at home to burn their films and then market it at high profit ($19 each). So for that reason, this will be the last edition of “Stuff I Burned From TCM”.

Roadblock (1951) – Charles McGraw takes a break from playing a cold-blooded killer in “The Killers” to play a cop on the take in “Roadblock”. This quick-paced noir potboiler is classic RKO Studio stuff: McGraw has to keep embezzling stolen money to keep his high price-tag girlfriend happy. Even she sees him getting out of control until he has a final showdown with the LAPD in the middle of the dried-out Los Angeles River. Edmond O’Brien played a similar kind of crooked cop in “Shield For Murder”, but I think I like this one more. Script written by the awesome Steve Fisher.

The Rag Man (1925) – Jackie Coogan (aka “Uncle Fester”) rose to prominence playing the title character in Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”, but acquitted himself later on in movies like this, where he plays a pesky runaway orphan who barges in on an old junk vendor’s heart and business. With the name of Timothy Michael Patrick Aloysius Kelly (…”and a few other names I’ve forgotten”), Coogan behaves like a Harvey Comics character in the flesh, performing such unforgivable stunts as convincing a rich man’s son to dump his entire vintage wine collection because the bottles are valuable. Pretty funny stuff.

West of Zanzibar (1928) – There’s a lot of brilliant Lon Chaney films neglected by DVD release, it was a toss-up between this or “He Who Gets Slapped”. This one wins out because in addition to being directed by Tod Browning, it also co-stars Lionel Barrymore. Chaney plays a magician whose wife and child are taken from him by a rival magician. He retires to a remote jungle village playing a character not unlike Marlon Brando’s in “Apocalypse Now”, complete with creepy African slaves. A young girl journeys to his jungle village where he tortures her, gets her hooked on drugs, only to find much too late she’s his long lost daughter! Sick, and has to be seen to be believed.

Paris Blues (1961) – The only reason I can see for this movie’s inability of DVD release are the music rights for Duke Ellington tracks or possibly Louis Armstrong’s estate maybe blocking this. Otherwise, this film’s chock full of excitement, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier portraying expatriate American jazz musicians making the beat club scene with Barbie Doll tourists Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll falling for them. The bohemian night club scene is handled nicely with some gorgeous black and white cinematography. I found the faux Django Reinhardt dude with the heroin monkey on his back character fairly droll. This is one of the best jazz movies ever and a class act all the way. But hey, let’s not release this amazing burst of superfine coolness, let’s release more Jennifer Aniston chick flick crap. The decline of Western civilization continues.

Anna May Wong: Daughter of the Dragon

Turner Classic Movies recently screened their Asian film festival, and sandwiched in between annoying Charlie Chan and even more annoying Jackie Chan they showed a magnetic but obscure actress named Anna May Wong. Like Louise Brooks and Lizabeth Scott she fell short of major stardom in spite of the fact that she illuminates a film the minute you see her. She holds her own effortlessly next to Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express", no small feat. She was sexually radiant in a silent film called "Piccadilly" playing a sinister Jazz Age showgirl. Many of her films, good and bad, were screened during the fest. Because of her ethnicity she was cast for the most part as unscrupulous Dragon Ladies, a sheer waste of her talent as most of these pictures were absolute B-movie trash. One of them hit a nerve, though, and it was called "Daughter of the Dragon".

Filmed in 1931, the film begins with Anna May Wong playing showgirl Princess Ling Moy knocking 'em dead in London's West End. Backstage after her show she's promised a meeting with her long lost father, who turns out to be the infamous Fu Manchu(!). She's taken to his hidden lair where he tells her she's the heir to his evil empire. Fu Manchu tells Ling Moy, "I wish I had another son to exact my revenge."
Ling Moy, desperate for her father's approval, vows, "I will be your son!"
There's an overall melancholic need for approval as Ling Moy desires to be accepted by her father, and later by Ronald Petrie, the blandly blonde English gentleman she lusts for.
"Will I ever have golden hair and eyes of blue?" she yearns for his love as much as she does her father's.
"Strange - I find you oddly attractive", is Petrie's left-handed compliment. Just to make sure she can successfully seduce him she relegates his fiancee Joan Marshall, equally blonde and bland, to her evil Chinese torture dungeon.
Of course Scotland Yard, led by Chinese detective Ah Kee shows up on time and heroically saves our two British white bread lovers and kills Ling Moy, but not before she fatally shoots Ah Kee. The film ends with the heroic Chinaman and the dastardly Dragon Lady dead in each other's arms, like a lover's clutch. The message: Chinese women belong with Chinese men, and not with good, upstanding Englishmen.

While I was watching this movie I couldn't help thinking how incredibly dull the good, vanilla-white English were in character and physical appearance, and how the movie only came alive when the exotic and gorgeous Ling showed up on screen. I also asked myself what the significance of showing Chinese torturing the imperialistic British was in this film, and all I could think of was some bizarre payback for the real-life abuse the Chinese suffered building railroads in America just fifty years before the release of this movie. It felt like some form of cinematic revenge.

The great irony about Wong was that although she was always cast as a Chinese woman she was born in Los Angeles, California and never dated Asian men, but American men. In spite of all that she had to play the exotic Pekingese just to make it in the movies. Even in real life she yearned to fit in somehow, just like in "Daughter of the Dragon", and that's why this silly B-movie is bigger than its intentions.