I love the felicitous discoveries that often happen whenever I google. Earlier today I googled "Hong Kong" + "sixties"... and what do you know... there just happens to be this really cool Brit band called Hong Kong In The 60s. How could I not write about them here at Soft Film?!
While the group's music harkens back to vintage influences such as "early electronic pop, 1960s Chinese music and Italian film soundtracks", their evocative synth pop sound is totally now.
I'm going to single out their haunting, bittersweet cover of Teresa Teng's classic "Tian Mi Mi", but do check out their website and MySpace page for more of the band's wonderful songs. Their debut EP, Willow Pattern Songs is due out this June. I can't wait!
Take a gander at mod girls Angela Yu Chien (left) and Teresa Wong Tin Lai (right) outside the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City in this picture from their 1965 tour of the United States. Go ahead... click on it! Angela in particular is very sharply dressed. I love her shoes.
And check out this photo of Angela sporting a bold "A" pendant. How cool is that?!
The following article about their trip appeared in Southern Screen No. 95 (January, 1966). You can view the original here.
Shaw Stars in the States
Vivacious Shaw actresses Angela Yu Chien and Teresa Wong returned from America early December after a three-month swing through 13 states. The girls were members of a Hong Kong trade mission under the sponsorship of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries to help promote the Colony to the Americans.
Of their experiences in the New World the girls had this to say: "We were absolutely overwhelmed; everywhere we went were royally entertained. We met many Chinese-American friends." The actresses enjoyed every minute of their hectic trip, from modelling cheongsams in Seattle to watching a rodeo in Kansas City, from touring the fabulous New York World's Fair to watching the spectacular Niagara Falls.
I'll have more to share about both Angela and Teresa in the coming days. Let me just end this post with a little bit of trivia. The 55th Street Playhouse was owned by California native Frank Lee, who also operated movie houses in Los Angeles and San Francisco. His son — Frank Lee, Jr. — currently runs three theaters in San Francisco, including the legendary 4-Star Theatre, one of the last venues in the U.S. to show new Hong Kong movies on a regular basis (although sadly, it's been less than regular in the past few years).
Before I started this blog, I spent nearly two-and-a-half years creating and maintaining a website devoted to Connie Chan, 1960s Cantonese teen idol extraordinaire. Yep, Connie did it all: Chinese opera, action, comedy, martial arts, melodrama, romance — sometimes all within a single movie!
Connie's contemporary films almost always featured a couple of songs, which were also released on 45rpm EP records. Mixing elements of Cantonese folk melodies and Western popular music, her songs helped give birth to what would later become known as Cantopop.
A splendid example of Connie's hybrid pop sound is the following song from Lady Bond Strikes Again (1966), which takes "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music and turns it into “Let’s Practice Kung Fu Fighting”!
Although Connie's legendary Lady Bond movies are criminally unavailable on DVD, you can at least get a taste from M59's wonderful homemade music video. The translated lyrics below are courtesy of Connie Chan fans Webbburt and Cindy Law.
“Let’s Practice Kung Fu Fighting” from Lady Bond Strikes Again (1966)
Throwing a punch and a kick requires method (repeat verse)
The energy and agility must be appropriate (repeat verse)
Eyes in four directions, while ears in eight Keep the cool, facing battle without haste
(Practice our kung fu, even better than James Bond The fast paced attack is fun)
Attack the enemy while he is not on guard (Let’s practice till we are strong as King Kong)
Hope everybody will be diligent in practicing (But we must strengthen our physique first)
This kung fu tactic is fierce as it uses both fists (Yes, this one is very fierce)
This kung fu tactic is to target the enemy’s stomach (Yes, hit the enemy’s stomach)
This kung fu tactic is to make the enemy underestimate our tiger-fierce attacks (Yes, this tactic is really tricky and very effective)
Attacking the enemy with a few quick punches is hard to defend (repeat verse)
This kung fu tactic flies like a butterfly, stings like a bee (repeat verse)
This kung fu tactic flies like a ruthless eagle (repeat verse)
This kung fu tactic kills without the enemy even knowing (repeat verse)
This kung fu tactic gives the enemy a misty eye so he can’t defend (repeat verse)
Every time I look through my eBay archive — a folder of some 6,000 unnamed and unorganized JPEG files that I've downloaded over the past three-and-a-half years — it's like opening a treasure chest.
Case in point: this absolutely stunning portrait of Patricia Lam Fung from the cover of The Young Companion (June, 1960). I love everything about it: from the soft focus seaside background to the bold and modern characters of the magazine title (良友, liang you, literally "good friend"). And of course, there's Lam Fung, impeccably stylish as always, in her adorable summer print dress and colorful hat with hanging yellow ribbon.
Anyway, I was intending on just posting the cover, because as far as I'm concerned, a picture of lovely Lam Fung doesn't need any words to accompany it. But, you know me, I felt the need to say a little bit about the seminal Young Companion magazine, or a least point a link to someone else who has already said it better than I could. As luck would have it, I found Young Companion's official website, which features a great English-language introduction to the magazine's history, along with some (unfortunately small) images of covers from the 1920s and 30s.
A few weeks ago, my blog buddy Glenn offhandedly wished for a picture of Lily Ho wearing a hat. Well, since I love to find things, I searched my eBay archive and found this stylish photo of Lily (circa 1968), which I couldn't resist tinting in Photoshop.
Given my recent interest in Chinese American vaudeville, I was delighted to discover this article from International Screen No. 29 (March, 1958) about a variety fundraiser organized by Cathay/MP&GI during the Chinese New Year of 1958.
Of special interest is the skit "Northerners & Southerners" which would later be fleshed out by Cathay into a successful trilogy of films (1961-64) playing on the culture clash in Hong Kong between Mandarin-speaking immigrants from northern China and Cantonese speakers from the South. Some of the other acts were derived from previous films — the "Sword Dance" from Our Sister Hedy (1957) — or films then in production — Li Mei and Chen Ho's calypso routine in Calendar Girl (1959).
A scan of the original article is available here (1.9MB PDF).
"Blossoms and Beauties"
In response to the Standard-Sing Tao Newspapers' Fat Choy Drive to raise funds for Hongkong's needy people during the Chinese New Year, Motion Picture and General Investment Co. staged an unprecedented mammoth vaudeville show in which the cream of the Colony's movie workers paraded their talent in singing, dancing, clowning and tear-jerking. That the show was a whopping success was borne out by the fact that the two performances were played to full houses. The 18 items on the entertainment fare were dished out by a big cast of Hongkong's top movie stars, producers and directors.
"Sword Dance" fencers Yeh Feng, Grace Chang, and Lin Tsui
Zhuang Xue Fang and Chang Yang in an artist-and-model sketch
Chen Ho, Wu Jia-xiang, and Wang Lai in the "Magic Doctor" sketch
Li Mei and Chen Ho and their calypso routine
Leung Sing-bo and Liu En-jia in "Northerners & Southerners"
I miss some of the beer commercials they used to play before movies at the cinema. Stupid Gov had to ban them for fucks. Anyway, here are some of the funniest beer commercials ever:
It was a brief notice in an issue of the short-lived Chinese Digest — the first ever English-language magazine produced by and for Chinese Americans — that recently led me to watch my first Shirley Temple film. The news item said that the Chinese music class of St. Mary's Chinese School in San Francisco had been invited to perform in Stowaway (1936).
St. Mary's all-girl Chinese music orchestra (from the August 14, 1936 issue of Chinese Digest)
I had no idea what to expect from the movie and was quite surprised to see Shirley Temple playing a Chinese-speaking orphan named Ching Ching. Evidently, Little Miss Temple learned 500 words of Chinese for her role! Although the story opens in China, most of the film takes place on board a ship bound for San Francisco, with Shirley as the accidental stowaway who manages to charm herself into the lives of two passengers.
The appearance of the St. Mary's orchestra comes when Shirley and her new guardians disembark in Hong Kong for a little shopping and entertainment, which turns out to be a Chinese variety show featuring a young lady dressed in traditional Chinese finery tap dancing as the St. Mary's girls back her up on yangqin and erhu.
That would have been cool enough, but two more surprises were in store for me. The show is hosted by an emcee, introduced in the film as Li Ze Mon, the Major Bowes of China. "Major who?", you say. I didn't know either, but it turns out that Major Bowes was a popular American radio personality who hosted an amateur talent show on the airwaves from 1934 to 1952. He was famous for striking a gong whenever he couldn't stand a performer any longer. (Now I know where The Gong Show comes from!)
I could tell from the demeanor of this Chinese Major Bowes that I was witnessing a seasoned Chinese American stage performer. After a little digging around, I found out that he was none other than Harry Haw, a veteran vaudevillian known, among other titles, as "The Celestial Impressionist".
Harry Haw was born in 1897 in San Francisco Chinatown. He was encouraged to become a performer by the example of his friend Hugh Liang, who was a founding member of the Chung Wah Four, the world's first Chinese barbershop quartet. When the quartet decided to try their luck on Broadway in 1912, Harry begged Hugh to let him travel with them as an understudy. Harry never ended up performing with the Chung Wah Four, but he did start a dancing team with Minnie Don (Don Fung Gue), a sister of one of the quartet.
Newspaper advertisement for Harry Haw and Minnie Don (1913), and a newspaper photograph of Minnie Don (1916)
The duo were billed as "Petite Chinese Terpescorian Artists Presenting the very Latest Dance Crazes" and performed "Chinese Conceptions" of the Tango and the Texas Tommy, as well as sang in both English and Chinese. Around 1917, they started billing themselves as the "Children of Confucius". According to an article in the Fort Wayne Sentinel (June 1, 1917), they could "dance the syncopated steps of the American ballroom in a manner to put to the test the most skilled American exemplars of these dances" and closed their act "with an old-fashioned cake walk with some new fashioned steps interpolated."
By 1924, it appears that Harry was on his own, doing monologues and impressions of famous performers of the day — like Al Jolson — as they would appear on the "Celestial stage".
Harry Haw from the cover of the sheet music for "Yearning Just for You" (ca. 1925)
Sometime around 1926, Harry rechristened himself as the Honorable Wu and put together a revue of Chinese American performers. According to an advertisement in the Oxnard Daily Courier (December 14, 1926), the show featured "A carload of special scenery: Lighting Effects, Beautiful Costumes, Rare Oriental Properties. With 6 Musical Mandarins. The Honorable Wu's Revue. 7 Chinese Chorus Men. The Lotus Blossom Sisters. Harry Haw Impersonating Eddie Cantor. The New Black Bottom Dance. And What a Hula Dancer." By 1930, Harry's revue — billed as "Mr. Wu with his Chinese Show Boat" — featured 20 performers, including an all-girl jazz band. This was a full 75 years before 12 Girls Band charmed American audiences!
There is one more surprise to be found in Stowaway. After the tap dancer and St. Mary's all-girl Chinese music orchestra, Harry Haw introduces a Chinese Bing Crosby and lets him have a go at it before giving him the gong. The fellow impersonating Bing is Sammee Tong, an actor, comedian, and singer who is remembered today only for his role as the houseboy in the 1950s television series Bachelor Father (see TV Guide at left), and often cited in Multicultural and Ethnic Studies texts as an example of the demeaning and embarrassing Asian stereotypes perpetuated in American culture. But back in the 1940s, Sammee Tong was the master of ceremonies at Oakland herbalist Fong Wan's New Shanghai Cafe, where he was billed as "Chinatown's Playboy Songster". I've been unable to find any information about Sammee's career earlier than an uncredited role as a waiter in Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935). But since he was a San Francisco native, like Harry Haw, it's certainly possible that he was a member of Harry's Chinese revue.
Looked at today, the following clip from Stowaway is a very precious record of the ephemeral history of Chinese American vaudeville.
References
Bridging the Pacific: San Francisco Chinatown and Its People by Thomas W. Chinn
In the spirit of the record-breaking heatwave we are experiencing in California right now, here is a pinup of Julie Yeh Feng guaranteed to make your temperature rise. Grrr... I love that swimsuit!
(From the May, 1963 issue of The Screen & Stage Pictorial.)
Today, I suddenly had the urge to expand the parameters of my blog a bit. Inspired by Todd's weekly blog feature "Friday's best pop song ever", I've decided to do something similar and showcase some of the Chinese pop — both old and new — that I like to listen to.
First up on the Soft Film Video Jukebox is "喘一口氣" by PixelToy, one of my favorite Hong Kong pop duos. When I visited HK a year and a half ago, I had the good fortune of catching them perform in an intimate show (most of the audience was sitting on the floor) at kubrick, one of HK's coolest bookstores. The following song from their 2005 debut album, Science of Love, is typical of the delectable and surprising pop confections cooked up by band members Shan Ho and Candy Wu.
This postcard is for Loreto, who recently posted about Art Deco illustrator Rafael de Penagos. Penagos had a penchant for drawing flappers and modern girls, so much so that "la mujer Penagos" (the Penagos woman) became the emblem of the new woman in Spanish culture. As Loreto points out, the bathing beauty on the beach symbolized the emergence of women in the public sphere. The woman on the beach charted a new freedom of movement, both in relation to physical space and to the physicality of her own body.
I'm not sure who this lady is, but I'm wondering if she may be 1920s Shanghai actress Ni Hongyan (if DJ of The Chinese Mirror is reading this, maybe he can identify her). In any case, she is definitely a sister of "la mujer Penagos".
This post goes out to YTSL, who made a special request for something about the sultry Julie Yeh Feng. Here's an article from International Screen No. 29 (March, 1958), published a few months after Julie's debut in Our Sister Hedy (1957). You can view the original article here.
Yeh Fung, Kim Novak and Bai Kwong
Movie fans in these parts have crowned Yeh Fung, screenland's new siren, who is fast skyrocketing to fame, with the nickname "Kim Novak of the East". This moniker is quite fitting, seeing that both of them are tall, slim, bewitchingly beautiful and have that extra something sometimes known as "innate sex appeal". Besides, both are comparatively new comers. As this appears in print, only one of Yeh Fung's pictures, "My Sister Hedy", has been shown. The other two vehicles of hers, "Air Hostesses" and "The Wayward Husband", have yet to have their premieres. And yet she has already left a deep impression on movie fans.
Others have called Miss Yeh "Bai Kwong the Second" — Miss Bai is, of course, Mandarin movieland's best known "sexy wanton". Yeh Fung possesses Bai Kwong's low and magnetic voice and unique singing style. What's more, both appear lackadaisical but really emit some indescribable flame which well nigh hypnotizes people within their range of fire.
But when one asks Miss Yeh what she thinks of these nicknames, her answer is short, straightforward and to the point: "I am just myself." She is just that kind of girl, entirely without false modesty or pride. She is but natural.
In the near future, movie-goers will see more of her personality as she so ably projects it on the screen. They are going to like it.
You can definitely feel the heat of Yeh Feng's "indescribable flame" in the following clip from Our Sister Hedy. If after watching it, you find yourself tantalized, don't resist — go and order a copy of this truly classic film while you still can. The DVD is out of stock and no longer available at many retailers, but HMV Hong Kong still has copies!
Several weeks ago, I posted about Chun Siu-lei, who introduced burlesque elements into Cantonese opera during the late 1940s and early 50s. After learning about her antics, the following scene from the sequel to Prince of Thieves (1958) suddenly made sense to me — well, as much sense as can possibly be made from the appearance in a Cantonese opera film of a silver-painted exotic dancer and a mummy bearing a magical apple!
Prince of Thieves wasn't your run-of-the-mill Cantonese opera movie. It was a remake of Ma Sze-Tsang's famous Westernized stage opera The Vagabond Prince, which was adapted from Douglas Fairbanks' Thief of Bagdad (1924) and first translated to the silver screen by Ma himself in 1939. As a matter of fact, Ma Sze-Tsang had met Fairbanks sometime in 1931-32, when Ma was engaged for an 18-month run at the Mandarin Theater in San Francisco. Perhaps it was his sojourn on Gold Mountain that "corrupted" him, but Ma fell in love with Hollywood movies and took it upon himself to modernize Chinese opera by incorporating Western elements. In 1934 he established the Chuen Kou [Global] Film Company with the help of overseas Chinese investors. The following year he made his first film, Scent of Wild Flowers (1935), a remake of the Sternberg-Dietrich classic The Blue Angel. His next film was Opera Stars and Song Girls (1935), which was modeled on Hollywood's backstage musicals. The film included an opera highlight performed in modern dress and also featured dancing girls in sexy costumes.
Later in his life, Ma Sze-Tsang criticized these early experiments and advocated a return to tradition. In 1955 he moved to the People's Republic of China with his wife, opera star Hung Sin-nui, and became head of an opera training school in Guangzhou, where he taught until his death in 1964.
Meanwhile, back in Hong Kong, the bastardization of Cantonese opera that Ma had pioneered was being continued by director Luk Bong with his remake of Prince of Thieves, starring Ho Fei-fan and Mui Yee. The film and subsequent sequel were so popular that Luk Bong was engaged by Shaw Brothers to make a series of similarly styled Occidentalist fantasies starring Patricia Lam Fung and Pearl Au Ka-wai: Glass Slippers (1960), The Talking Bird (1959), Ali Baba and the 40 Robbers (1960), and The Sleeping Beauty (1960).
Okay, okay... I know... you just want to see the silver dancer, the mummy, and the magic apple. Here you go...
References Law Kar, "The American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema", The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (2002).
This post goes out to Glenn, who recently confessed his fondness for Lily Ho's big hairstyles. Here's a little exhibit showing the year-by-year evolution of Lily's hair from 1966 to 1970. Personally, I have no problem with her 1966-67 look, which is pretty cute. And I even think her 1968 hairdo (featured in the sadly-unavailable-on-DVD The Brain Stealers) is kind of cool. But her hair from 1969-70 symbolizes for me the garish fashion excesses that developed around the turn of the decade, as well as the general pitfalls of big hair. What do you think?
I was surprised to find this news item when I was flipping through the pages of International Screen No. 34 (August, 1958). Lucilla Yu Ming appearing on Broadway in Flower Drum Song?! How's that for an alternate reality!
I presume she was being considered for the role of Mei Li, the fresh-off-the-boat picture bride. I've been unable to find further confirmation that she was indeed under consideration for the role, but in American newspapers it was already being announced by the end of July that the role was given — not surprisingly — to Miyoshi Umeki, who had just won an Oscar for her supporting role in Sayonara (1957). It was the first time an Asian actress was nominated for an Academy Award and would not be repeated until fifty years later when Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for her supporting role in Babel (2006).
Miyoshi Umeki starred in Flower Drum Song for its entire 17-month run on Broadway and received a Tony nomination in 1959 for Best Actress. In 1961 she reprised her role in the film version of the play. Umeki seems to have attained the glittery heavens of Hollywood, but by the end of the 60s she was playing a housekeeper in The Courtship of Eddie's Father and retired after the show was canceled in 1972.
As much as I'm curious to see what it would have been like to have Yu Ming star in Flower Drum Song, it is undeniably a good thing that she stayed in Hong Kong. Indeed, she went on to garner a Best Actress award at the Asia Film Festival two years in a row for her roles in Her Tender Heart (1959) and All in the Family (1959), and she also won Best Actress at the first Golden Horse Awards for her work in Sun, Moon and Star (1961). Not only that, Yu Ming became a huge star in Japan when she starred alongside Japanese heartthrob Akira Takarada (of Godzilla fame) in a trilogy of films co-produced by Cathay/MP&GI and Toho: A Night in Hong Kong (1961), Star of Hong Kong (1962), and Tokyo, Hong Kong, Hawaii (1963). Who needs Hollywood?!
Anyway, here is the article from International Screen. A scan of the original is also available as a PDF.
Broadway Beckons to Yu Ming
Leading Mandarin movie star Li Li-hwa went to the United States mainly to make pictures. Her first in Hollywood "China Doll" has been completed. The undisputed best actress in Asia Lin Dai went over there to study English and dramatics. She has also achieved her purpose. Yu Ming, a third eminent stellar actress of Mandarin movies, has gone to the States after having been signed up by MP&GI. She makes the trip just "to see the world." However, the hawk-eyed producers and talent scouts lost little time in contacting her. That world-known song-and-dance-man Gene Kelly met her in San Francisco. He wants her in a new musical stage show "Flower Drum Song". If the terms and part are all right and she signs the contract, she will probably return to New York from Hollywood in September to start rehearsing. Usually shows of this stature run for over two years. The songs of "Flower Drum Song" are the works of that inimitable team Rogers and Hammerstein.
This picture from International Screen No. 6 (March, 1956) shows Lin Dai dressed up for one of her numbers with the Shochiku Revue in Cathay's 1956 musical comedy Merry-Go-Round.
This one goes out to whomever has made "pat ting hung" the number one keyword source of traffic to this blog. Every time I see those three words show up in my Google Analytics report, I feel a twinge of guilt for featuring so little of Pat Ting Hung. It's nothing personal against Pat, it's just that for some reason she never grabbed my attention in the way, for example, that Fanny Fan did. (Go ahead... call me shallow!)
Anyway, please accept this lovely picture of Pat from Southern Screen No. 6 (May, 1958) as a small first step toward rectifying her absence here at Soft Film.
From right: Joseph Sunn Jue, actress Patricia Joe (Chow Kwun-ling), and cameraman Joseph Jue on the set of She's My Gal.
Here's another article about Joseph Sunn Jue and his Grandview Film Company from the May 28, 1944 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. Like the other article I posted recently, it offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of the pioneering studio.
Some of the actors mentioned below would go on to become big stars in Hong Kong after the war. Patricia Joe (Chow Kwun-ling) was one of Cantonese cinema's most prolific actresses in the early 1950s and made a total of nearly 200 films during her career. Cheu Mo Wong (Wong Chiu-mo) — who ended up marrying Patricia — was also quite active. In 1957, the couple returned to San Francisco with their daughter after more or less retiring from the screen and stage (although Patricia continued to make films throughout the early 60s).
Wong Hock Sing (Wong Hok-sing) — although he had performed on the stage with Sit Kok-sin's and Ma Sze-tsang's troupes and acted in more than 30 films — is best known for his work behind the camera. His directorial debut was Grandview's White Powder and Neon Lights (shot in San Francisco, 1941; released in Hong Kong, 1947) and has the distinction of being the first color Chinese film (albeit shot on 16mm). The last of the more than 160 films he directed was The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (1968), starring none other than Connie Chan. In 1971, Wong moved back to San Francisco and managed the old Grandview Theater, which had been renamed the Chinatown Theater after it was sold by Joseph Sunn Jue in the mid-70s.
The building which housed Grandview's studio is still around today, at the end of Old Chinatown Lane. I dropped by the other day but was too shy to take a photo. It appears to be in current use by one of the Chinese family associations.
Anyway, without further ado, let's step backward 65 years into the past and peek inside the San Francisco studio of the Grandview Film Company.
San Francisco's Film Colony Produces a Bedroom Comedy By Hazel Bruce
The only producing Chinese motion picture company in the United States is operating in San Francisco, in an abandoned storeroom on Old Chinatown Alley. The actors are young people who are business men, secretaries, actors in the classic Chinese theater by day, and motion picture heroes and heroines by evenings.
Mr. Joseph Sun Jue, proprietor of the Grandview Film Company, is the impresario of this undertaking; it is not new to Mr. Sun. In 1933 Mr. Sun opened his film studio here. His intention then was to make films for the large Chinese population of this city as well as for that of New York, Seattle and a dozen other American cities. The business flourished and shortly Mr. Sun expanded as far as Hongkong, where he bought property and established a film producing unit.
There for several years the company turned out pictures, 120 in continuous production since 1933. The Chinese classics with their magnificence and costliness, blazed across the screen, as well as dozens of modern comedies, dramas and short subjects. Perhaps the most ambitious picture made in this period was "The Prince Consort," an historical film in which the wardrobe bill alone was for $50,000. Then came the war.
'She's My Gal' Back to California came the Grandview Film Company, to pick up production where it had left off in Hongkong. In spite of the disturbed times, Mr. Sun set up his studio in Chinatown and began turning out comedies as modern as chrome steel, dramas, historical films, an occasional classic drama. And his pictures continued to circulate; not only in this country, but in beleaguered China, the faces of the young people of San Francisco flickered across the screen in inland villages of unoccupied areas and even in the occupied provinces after the films had passed the Japanese censorship.
Mr. Sun invited me down to his studio last week at 7 one evening to see the first night's filming of a new picture, called smartly (in translation) "She's My Gal." It was a chilly evening, but as we stepped into the big open room which used to house half a dozen Oriental specialty shops, the lights were blazing on a small set depicting a modern hotel room.
Two young gentlemen loafed upon twin beds, arguing (so I was told, as the argument was conducted in Cantonese) as to how the bill for an $8.00 per day room was to be met out of a common exchequer of $20. One actor snapped his lighter open and shut in nervous anxiety as he talked; the sound man waved complicated signals from a small glass booth set near the front door. The camera, motor-driven Cine Special with a 200-foot magazine using 16mm film, moved noiselessly forward on its dolly, directed by cameraman Joseph Jue, son of the producer, and a student at the University of California. He pushed the "blimp," a padded, sound reducing jacket, carefully down over the motor.
"Cut!" said Mr. Sun.
The Usual Romance The two actors, Wong Hock Sing and Cheu Mo Wong, members of the Mandarin Theater Company, rose, grinned, relaxed and began chatting with other members of the company.
Patricia Joe, the slender, bright-eyed leading lady of the film group, looked up from the little table where she sat wrapped in a coat over a thin dress, waiting for her cue and lacquering her nails.
"Ready, Pat," called Mr. Sun in English.
The young woman slipped off her coat and was on the set in her bright print dress. Chiang Kay, writer and dialogue director for the unit, strolled up. Mr. Chiang is tall and lean; he hooked a foot negligently on a chair and began to talk. Miss Joe and the two actors nodded. Apparently, Mr. Chiang was informing the actors what was to happen in the next scene, what the lines were. Either these actors already knew their lines, or they committed them to memory as they listened, or they improvised. There were no scripts visible.
The scene began again. In the back reaches of the big work room, people moved quietly but interestedly. An elderly man drew up beside us and offered some murmured comments. A boy with a clapper came on the scene, held the numbered device in front of the actors' faces.
"Camera!" called Mr. Sun.
The dolly wheeled up; the sound track began to buzz. The speech is registered on a separate film, superimposed on the main film later. The Grandview Film Company was off on the second scene of "She's My Gal."
"What's the story about?" I asked the producer.
Mr. Sun smiled. The usual triangle romance: two boys love one girl. Which one will get her?"
"Modern love scenes?"
"Of course."
"Kissing?"
"Certainly. Sometimes for China, we cut just before the kiss, but not often. These are modern films!"
Miss Joe came up for her coat.
"Have you always spoken Chinese?" I asked.
She grinned. "Of course. But I was born here, so I speak 'American Chinese.' I have to watch on the screen that I speak 'Chinese Chinese'... the intonations are different."
Miss Joe is a secretary for the Hartford Insurance Company by day; she is a graduate of Commerce High School in this city. After the war, Miss Joe plans to go back to China and devote her whole time to acting; her screen name is Joe Quan Ling. It has the euphonious translation: "Universal Brightness."
Markets and Produce The business of the shooting moved along briskly. Mr. Sun, crisp and businesslike in shirt sleeves, interrupted to devise new business, some turns in the lines.
There was a large paper chart on the wall adjoining the set.
"The shooting schedule," murmured Mr. Sun behind me.
Something has to be adjusted in the sound booth. Jerry Wong, his earphones clapped down tightly, was listening to his gadgets with an absorbed air, and peering out through his glass pane. He shook his head at Mr. Sun. We sat down on a prop sofa to wait.
"Betty Leong, famous stage star of Hongkong, is one of our company," explained Mr. Sun. "She is a member now, also, of the Mandarin Theater here. That is the theater, you might say, of the Chinese opera. Both Wong Hock Sing and Cheu Mo Wong play there every night, too. They will have to be going soon now. They must be on the stage there shortly after 8:30. Everybody in our company does something else in the day time — we have students, actors, war workers.
"Our average working time is three to five nights a week, about three hours. We work always all day Saturday and Sunday, when we are shooting. We will shoot perhaps 200 feet in an evening."
(Forty feet was the sum total of the Grandview's first evening on "She's My Gal," due to newspaper interruptions.)
Mr. Sun continued: "In a year and half of work here we have made four films, and the fifth is now in the making. In China, there were 60 in our company. That included cutters and technical people. Our films are nine to ten reels and run for an hour and three-quarters. Now, of course, we have more technical difficulties and our shooting time is slower."
In China now there are no producing film companies, says Mr. Sun. But there are exhibitors, and millions of amusement-hungry people.
The sound track was functioning again; Mr. Wong in his booth was grinning cheerfully. Mr. Sun rose.
Double Roles Once more the two sleek young men in beautifully cut clothes began their variously pitched dialogue from the modern bedroom. Presumably, they said:
"What? Eight dollars a day for this room, and only $20 to last a week between us! Besides, what money I have I need to entertain my girl!"
"Girl! My girl, you mean!"
"Your girl... Why, you..." and so on.
"Cut!" cried Mr. Sun. "Eight-twenty... time for you boys to go!"
The two tall, well-groomed young men instantly de-animated. They walked off the set abstractedly, looked around for sleek overcoats.
"They'll just have time to make it to the Mandarin," remarked the producer. "Good night!"
The young actors slid out the latticed and lacquered door, made beautiful for tourists who used to buy stem ginger and rice-pattern Cantonware in the shops here. In 10 minutes, by cutting through alleys, they would appear upon the stage of their forefathers, in stylized Chinese actor's clothing, speaking lines worn fine with antiquity.
Miss Joe was pulling on her coat. "Good night!"
"She'll be seen here soon in a film called "The Songstress," commented Mr. Sun. "It's modern, of course.
The Grandview Film Company was getting ready to close the evening's work; it was eight-thirty. The young actors stopped and scanned the wall schedule briefly as they went out. Young Mr. Jue wheeled the camera back and began to cover it.
"She's My Gal," however, stood ready and waiting to resume the next evening the momentous flicker of modern fun against the ancient timelessness of Chinese thought.
From left: Fang Ying, Chin Ping, Li Ching, Margaret Hsing Hui
Here's a cute photo set from Southern Screen No. 74 (April, 1964) showcasing four of the first graduates of Shaw's "Southern Drama Group", the actor training academy started by the studio in October, 1961.
Of course, my favorite of the batch is the one above, with the girls making funny faces for the camera — that is, except for Li Ching, who takes advantage of the moment to give her sexiest look!
I'm undecided on best funny face; both Fang Ying and Hsing Hui are equally awesome with totally different styles. But poor pensive Chin Ping just doesn't have the joi d'vivre needed to make a good funny face.
You can download the original article (which has more pictures) here.
I'm not certain, but this centerfold from Southern Screen No. 74 (April, 1964) is very likely Cheng Pei-pei's first for the magazine. (She made her cover debut four months later on issue No. 78.) According the accompanying blurb, her first film assignment was Lotus Lamp with Lin Dai, but due to the star's suicide that July, the film wasn't released until the following year.
By that time, Pei-pei had played leading lady in Lovers' Rock (1964) and Song of Orchid Island (1965). Lovers' Rock is an interesting, if not entirely successful, blend of Hong Kong melodrama and Taiwanese "healthy realism", while Song of Orchid Island, in which the Shanghai-born Pei-pei plays a Taiwanese aborigine, is amusingly bizarre proof that Chinese cinema engaged in exotic Othering, just like Hollywood.
But it wasn't until Come Drink with Me (1966) that the mold was cast for the fierce lady-knight persona that defined the remainder of Pei-pei's career at Shaw Brothers.
Without a doubt, Pei-pei played the swordswoman better than any of the other Shaw starlets — and I wouldn't have had it otherwise — but still, it's a shame that she didn't get to show her sweet side more often. She really was quite a dreamboat!
"Dreamboat" for the Young
Ever since she was "discovered" by Director Griffin Yueh last year, the star of this 18-year-old starlet has been rising.
After having completed her training at the Shaw-operated Southern Dramatic Group, Cheng Pei-pei was immediately given a major role by playing opposite four-time Asian Movie Queen Lin Dai in the fairy tale "The Lotus Lamp." This difficult assignment testified Griffin Yueh's confidence in Pei-pei's capabilities and Shaw Studio's determination to cultivate new talents.
As it turned out, Pei-pei in her first movie appearance lived up to the expectations of all concerned so superbly that she was assigned the leading role in Pan Lei-directed "The Lovers' Rock." For location shooting of this magnum opus, Pei-pei and her colleagues spent three months in Taiwan late last year.
During this period, this charming personality developed such a vast following that she eventually became an "idol" sweetheart for the younger generation. Her bright and vivacious features need a little rouge or lipstick only. She resents wearing high heels. She prefers casual wear to form-fitting cheongsam.
Marriage plans? "Not now, thank you," she said. "I still have so much to learn."
It's safe to say, considering the puzzling lack of legitimate DVD releases for many of her films (Shanghai Express, anyone?), that a lot of folks nowadays have become acquainted with Anna May Wong through her myriad portraits rather than her movies. Let's face it: Anna May Wong was extremely photogenic. The camera loved her, and so did a host of famous photographers, from George Hurrell to Carl Van Vechten.
Here's a series of Anna May Wong "photo-cartoons" of which I am particularly fond. They date from 1928, when Anna May left the U.S. to make a name for herself in Europe. I know nothing about their creator or the circumstances of their creation. All I know is that they are absolutely charming, playfully capturing Anna May's humor and love of dressing up.
I just sat there blankly looking at what I had found,
But tell me angel “Could I hold your hands?”
That cute face that lingers on my mind,
That beautiful smile made my mouth drool dry,
I doubt the dream that you'll be mine,
But a friend I'll be though laugh or cry.
Comment: I think I was running on an empty fuel tank when I wrote this one. Wrote it on the way to work, so I blame it on morning blurriness. The only thing I like about this one is the title. :-)
