The Lost World of Esther Eng

Mad Fire, Mad Love (1949)

The lost films of Esther Eng, the pioneering Chinese American female director, are as tantalizing as the above advertisement for her last movie, Mad Fire, Mad Love, a color feature set and shot in Hawaii.

A couple of weeks ago Frank Bren, co-author of Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View, wrote a wonderful tribute to Esther Eng in memory of her passing 40 years ago. Hers is a fascinating story that deserves to be better known. Unfortunately, none of the nine films she directed have survived. Frank and Hong Kong movie historian Law Kar have been trying to restore Esther to her proper place in film history. They've written about her in their book (mentioned above) and have created a website (that is, sorry to say, sorely in need of a redesign). Evidently, they are also developing a feature film about her life. All of which is a roundabout way of excusing myself from duplicating their research and encouraging you to read Frank's article, look for Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View at your local library, and visit the Esther Eng website.

Let me instead present some primary source materials that I've been able to dig up. First is a full page ad for Esther's first film project, Heartaches (1936). The ad comes from the January 31, 1936 issue of Chinese Digest, an English-language Chinese American news magazine published in San Francisco.


Heartaches (1936)

The production of the film was chronicled in Chinese Digest in the months leading up to its release. On December 6, 1935 it was reported that scenes were shot in San Francisco Chinatown before the crew left for Hollywood to finish filming the story. On December 13, 1935 it was revealed that Heartaches would include scenes shot in Technicolor, still a new process at that time (the first feature shot in Technicolor, Becky Sharp had just been released the previous summer). On December 20, 1935 it was reported that production had been completed and that the film would be released shortly. On December 27, 1935 it was announced that Heartaches would debut at the Mandarin Theatre in San Francisco Chinatown on New Year's Day. I've been unable to confirm if the premiere happened as planned, but the following news item from February 14, 1936 suggests that the screening may been postponed.

"Heartaches" to Be Shown This Week

Cathay Pictures' super singing and talking picture, "Heartaches", will be shown at the local Mandarin Theater this Saturday and Sunday, with Wei Kim Fong, stage star, in the leading role.

"Heartaches" is financed by Quon Yi Lum, and produced by Esther Eng and Bruce Wong, with Paul Ivano, formerly Gloria Swanson's best cameraman, doing the camera work. Story and direction are by Frank Tong and Henry Tung.

[NOTE: Frank Tong (Tang) worked in Hollywood as an actor and technical advisor for more than twenty years. He also provided the calligraphy for the the signs and banners in The Good Earth.]

The story concerns an aviation student in America, Ching, played by Beal Wong, who falls in love with an opera star, played by Wei Kim Fong. The manager of the opera company, jealous of Fong's constant rendezvous with Ching, threatens to discharge her and send her back to China.

[NOTE: Beal Wong was a bit player in Hollywood for some 30 years, appearing in nearly 50 films.]

Ching finishes his training, goes to war in China, and is separated from his loved one. While in China, he marries and Fong, hearing about it, is heartbroken.

Capacity audience is expected to witness this stirring film. All of the players in the cast, with the exception of the star, are American-Chinese. Miss Eng with Miss Fong, will journey shortly to China to seek prospective film stars for their coming productions. They will stay in China for two months.

The present picture will also be shown in Singapore in the near future.

In May 1936 Esther Eng and Wai Kim Fong did indeed sail to Hong Kong, where they screened Heartaches. Wai Kim Fong would star in Esther's next two films, her first as director: National Heroine (1937), a patriotic movie about a woman who joins the Chinese army to prove that the "weaker" sex is vital to the defense of China; and Ten Thousand Lovers (1938), a Grandview film produced by Joseph Sunn Jue.

Esther would return to the U.S. and work again with Grandview on several pictures, including Golden Gate Girl (1941), starring a young Bruce Lee, just three months old; and A Fair Lady by the Blue Lagoon (1947), a love story set in rural California.


A Fair Lady by the Blue Lagoon (1947), aka The Blue Jade

Esther Eng's final film was Mad Fire, Mad Love (1949). Later that year she moved to New York City and opened a Chinese restaurant: an inconspicuous ending to the story of a forgotten movie pioneer.

Let me leave you with one last interesting item about Esther from the May 8, 1936 issue of Chinese Digest, on the eve of her career as film director. In a column called "Lien Fa Saw You" talking about the latest hairstyles being worn in Chinatown, Esther — quite a fetching tomboy — is among the ladies mentioned (and, I might add, so is Li Tei Ming, future wife of Charlie Low and featured singer at Forbidden City).

As Miss Esther Eng favors sports clothes, her hair is fashioned "in tune". A sleeky boyish bob is worn with one very slight wave at the left side, which breaks the straightness. When attending a formal affair, more waves may be seen, a clever idea, and most charming on Miss Eng.

Thanks to The Chinese Mirror and Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver for the heads-up about Frank Bren's article!

* NOTE: the image of Mad Fire, Mad Love at the top of this post is not an actual artifact but a composite that I created from identical, but differently colored, versions of an ad that appeared in a Chinese movie magazine.

Made in America: Grandview's Color Films

I've talked before about the pioneering 16mm color films of Joseph Sunn Jue's Grandview Film Company. Recently, I had the good fortune of acquiring a few fliers for some of these movies from an eBay seller in Malaysia (which is proof of just how far they traveled).

Jue, along with director Moon Kwan, had established the Grandview Film Company in San Francisco in 1933. The studio's inaugural feature was Romance of the Songsters, starring Kwan Tak-hing (best known for playing Wong Fei-hung in the original 1950s series). One of the first Cantonese talkies, the movie was a big hit with Chinese American audiences and was popular in Hong Kong as well.

In 1935, with the support of Chinese American investors, Jue moved the studio to Hong Kong, where it quickly became one of the colony's "big four" film companies. Grandview's prolific output included patriotic appeals like Lifeline (1935) and Close Combat (1937), direct responses to Japan's increasing aggression against China, and light-hearted fare such as The Modern Bride (1935) and Stage Lights (1938), which provided momentary escape from the darkening clouds of war.

The Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941 put a halt to film production in the territory. Undeterred, Jue returned to San Francisco and continued making movies. Between 1942 and 1947, 21 features were made: all contemporary stories depicting the lives of Chinese Americans. The films were shot on 16mm, some in black-and-white and some in color. Most Hollywood movies were still black-and-white at the time, so Jue's decision to shoot in color was quite ambitious. After opening at his Chinatown theater, the films traveled to Chinese American communities across the United States. (I've been unable to determine if they were screened anywhere outside the U.S. during the war.)

In 1947, after the end of the war, Jue returned to Hong Kong and brought the films with him. They were enormously popular and helped raise the money needed to restart his Hong Kong studio. Eventually, the films were screened in Malaysia and Singapore, where the fliers below were printed.

The American productions of the Grandview Film Company deserve far more attention than they have received (especially here in the U.S., where they've been practically forgotten). At a time when the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and Shanghai resulted, respectively, in the cessation and co-option of Chinese film production, Joseph Sunn Jue helped keep Chinese cinema alive. That these films also depicted the lives of Chinese Americans at a crucial turning point in their history makes them even more important.

Luckily, a third of Grandview's American films have survived and are available for public viewing at the Hong Kong Film Archive. I'm planning on taking a look at some of them during my upcoming trip to Hong Kong, so stay tuned for a report. In the meantime, here are the fliers for four of Grandview's color films shot in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.




Joy and Peace
HK release: March 6, 1947
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir/Scr: Chiang Wai-kwong
Cast: Sun Chu, Wong Chiu-mo, Tang Pui, Chow Kwun-ling (aka Patricia Joe), Man Ha, Wong Hok-sing, Leung Bik-yuk
Note: The flier's use of the Republic of China flag and the graphic "V" (for "Victory") indicates that this was one of Grandview's patriotic movies. It is not known whether the film survives.




The Returned Soul
HK release: October 9, 1947
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir/Scr: Wong Kam-yan (pseudonym of Wong Hok-sing)
Cast: Leung Bik-yuk, Tang Pui, Wong Hok-sing, Sun Chu, Wong Kam-lung
Note: The studio also produced more typical genre fare like this detective thriller. It is not known whether the film survives.




A Strong Wind Banished the Swallow
HK release: September 6, 1948
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir: Joseph Sunn Jue
Cast: Lai Yee (aka Marianne Quon), Tang Pui, Liu Kei-wai, Chiu Man-fai, Wong Kam-lung, Shum Lit-fu, Tam Chui-lan
Note: A copy of this film is in safekeeping at the Hong Kong Film Archive; a reference video is available for viewing at the Archive's resource center.




A Fair Lady by the Blue Lagoon
HK release: March 6, 1949
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir: Esther Eng
Cast: Siu Fei-fei, Liu Kei-wai, Tang Pui, Wong Hok-sing, Wong Kam-lung
Note: The director Esther Eng is one of Chinese cinema's pioneering female filmmakers. Evidently, none of the nine films she made survives today.


References and Further Reading

• Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View by Law Kar and Frank Bren
• "The American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema" by Law Kar, from The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity
• Silver Light: A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Cinema, 1920-1970 by Paul Fonoroff

Chow Kwun-Ling: A Gal Named Joe

Here's some random stuff I recently found about Patricia Joe (Chow Kwun-ling), a Chinese-American actress who got her start in San Francisco at Joseph Sunn Jue's Grandview Film Company before becoming a big star in Hong Kong after World War II.

First up is a short blurb about Patricia that accompanied the above photograph in the "Interesting People" section of The American Magazine (March, 1945). Once the United States had entered World War II, Chinese began to be portrayed in the American media as the "good" Asians, while Japanese were demonized as the "evil" Asians. What didn't change, however, was that good ol' American ineptness when talking about other cultures. The description of Patricia as a Chinese Hedy Lamarr is a little out of left field.

A Gal Named Joe

In San Francisco's Chinatown the Chinese population of America has its own Hollywood. And the Hedy Lamarr of the lot is shapely, 21-year-old Patricia Joe, who works days in a business firm as a secretary and does her heavy emoting at night in front of the cameras of the Grandview Film Company, the world's leading producer of Chinese films. She is paid $300 a picture. Pat's real name is Joe Quan Ling, which means Universal Brightness Joe. Daughter of a tobacco merchant, Pat was born in Hawaii. She always wanted to be an actress, and finally made the grade when she got a bit in a solid Cantonese sender called The Lovers' Reunion. However, it was really in her second picture that Pat got her wheels off the ground. This epic was called The Calamity of a Country, or The Miser's Fate. When the release of this job came about, little Miss Joe won her way into the heart of every oriental film fan from San Francisco to the Chinese Theater in New York. None of her pictures have reached China, because of the war, but as soon as the Japs are chased out, Universal Brightness Joe will have a chance to shine in the East.

Next is this darkly humorous photo and caption from the February 1939 issue of Chinese Digest, the first English-language periodical written by and for second-generation Chinese Americans. The Chinese characters in the background mean "to resist" or "to boycott". At the time, Japan's war machine was being fueled by scrap iron from the United States. Chinese Americans were active in picketing the ships containing this cargo. They also initiated boycotts of Japanese products such as silk, one of Japan's leading exports.

You Will, Will You?
This appears to be what Catherine Joe is saying to her sister, Patricia, as the former aims a gun at the latter for wearing silk stockings. These two misses are actively helping the committee of the China War Relief Association in their campaign to bring about a U.S. embargo of all war materials to Japan, and also the boycott of Japanese goods.

Finally, here are two photos from the San Francisco Public Library's Historical Photograph Collection, which I will respectfully not reproduce here on blog. Just follow the links!

• Patricia Joe performing in an all-Chinese fashion show in 1939


• Patricia Joe raising money for China war relief in 1944

Joseph Sunn Jue and San Francisco's Film Colony

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.

Joseph Sunn Jue: The Darryl Zanuck of Chinatown

Several months ago I wrote about American-born Hong Kong actress Lai Yee (aka Marianne Quon) and mentioned that she was married to Hong Kong movie pioneer Joseph Sunn Jue. He was a seminal figure in the development of Cantonese cinema, and I've been meaning to say a few words about him. Here's an article from the September 21, 1947 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle that gives a fascinating glimpse of Jue and his Grandview Film Company. The charming illustration at top accompanied the article.

喜相逢
In Other Words: Boy Meets Girl
By James Hudson

SAN FRANCISCO'S STREETS are paved with gold and lined with toothsome young ladies and gentlemen. That, in any case, is the impression shared by many Chinese addicts of the movie houses. And the man to blame for all this is a soft-spoken fellow named Joseph Sunn Jue, the Darryl Zanuck of Chinatown.

Actually Joseph Jue is the organizer and president of America's only company that produces Chinese films, and that company is right here. You can find the studio (Grandview Films) in a reconverted night club in one of the alleys that wind off Grant Avenue.

On the average, eight full-length color talkies come out of this alley each year for distribution to large settlements of Chinese throughout the world. But beyond this, Mr. Jue's works have vast and appreciative audiences in Cuba, Mexico, Panama, South America, Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia and Madagascar. In America, 25 movie houses show his films, 10 of them right here in California.

Most of the actors involved in the Jue enterprise are office workers, students and local actors. A few of the stars, however, are imports from China itself. Even within the company, almost everyone performs dual tasks, with actors and stage hands interchanging duties as circumstances demand.

THE STUDIO is as informal as the corner soda fountain, with sundry people wandering in and out during the shooting. Teenage sweethearts and conservative elderly men come in, watch for awhile, and leave — without uttering a word to anyone. The young couples self-consciously try to keep their minds on the company's activities, and the little, old men maintain dead-pan expressions, registering delight with twinkling eyes.

Studio equipment and procedure are masterworks of improvisation. The group's one camera, an electrically run 16mm gadget, is mounted on a home-made platform on which the cameraman sits and pushes back and forth by one-foot-on-the-floor action. The microphone is suspended over the actors' heads by means of an efficient swinging bamboo fishpole-like arrangement. The company's prop furniture suffers much wear and tear from being moved around to obtain different settings.

The mild-mannered founder of the Grandview Film Company, Joseph Jue, was born 42 years ago in Canton. He was raised, however, in San Francisco and is an American citizen. Jue learned the motion picture business the hard way, relying upon a very limited experience and a lot of common sense.

His original interest in movie production started back in silent film days, 1922 to be exact. This was after San Franciscan Ray Duhem had shown him the ropes about making animated cartoons. Jue picked up the rudiments of photography as "free-lance" photographer in Chinatown, got an idea of directing procedures from a few books on the subject, and learned production techniques by sitting through movies day after day "to see how it was done."

Refusing to be bluffed by the depression which wiped out the three other Chinese film companies existing in the U.S., Jue organized the Grandview Company in San Francisco in 1933. In those days he functioned in every capacity but acting. Working as writer, stage hand, producer, director, cameraman and business manager, he produced the company's first professional contribution to filmdom: "Blossom Time," an original talkie.

From the very beginning, the company has catered to China's huge audience. When the Hongkong audience, like ants after the picnic, flocked to see "Blossom Time," the company established its studios there in 1933.

After producing some 120 pictures in China, Mr. Jue opened the Grandview Movie Theater, seating 400, at 756 Jackson Street. The Grandview, unlike the studio, is conspicuously marked by a flashy neon marquee which advertises in Chinese script the picture fare for the day. The theater, however, does not seek tourist trade, and, on the other hand, tourists don't seem to be attracted in great numbers to the theater.

THE COMPANY recently produced "Pear Blossoms in the Storm," a $30,000 color talkie, which took three months to make. A tourist browsing around the Jackson Street movie house the afternoon of the premier would have enjoyed one hour of the two-hour show. Only curiosity would keep him in his seat for the remaining time.

Upon entering the theater, the self-conscious visitor would soon relax as the Orientals continue to chat among themselves, apparently unaware of his existence. He will probably be disappointed to find himself in an environment, except for language, similar to any theater he'd attended before. He might grow a little concerned though, about the unusual number of at-the-restless-crying-age children present.

Though the dialogue is entirely Chinese, except for an occasional "OK," an universal expression, the visitor will be able to follow easily the first hour of the story.

At the end of the hour, the leading female character dies, and the visitor, figuring that a good spot for the story to end, is totally confused by the action which follows.

With its local "modern" background, the setting is entirely Occidental, complete to Vogue and Esquire costumes, night club scenes, and New Year's Eve celebrations. The visitor might be slightly amused to hear the casual mixing of Oriental and Western music. He could easily embarrass himself by laughing when he mistakes for comedy what happens to be a deadly serious portion of the plot. At first, he might smugly decide that production doesn't touch Hollywood techniques. However, after visiting the studio and witnessing the conditions under which the pictures are made, the visitor will concede that the films are amazingly well done.

Though the romantic dramas sell the most tickets in China, the company produces everything from comedies and detective mysteries to historical dramas. Presently, the company is shooting a picture roughly translated "Girl in the Lake."

MR. JUE HOPES to return soon to his prewar production rate of 18 films a year: "six supers and 12 quickies." The supers were budgeted between $40,000 and $60,000, and took from three to six months to make. Quickies, costing from $15,000 to $20,000, were completed in three weeks.

Practically ever member of Mr. Jue's family works actively with the company. The pretty girl smiling behind the cashier's booth is likely to be one of the daughters. The doorman and the usher might be one of the sons. When not working at the theater or doing their high school or college assignments, the brothers and sisters work in the studio.

With the company securely established after guiding it through the storms of economic depression and war, Mr. Jue feels entitled to a rest. So he presently confines himself to writing, producing, and directing when he's not performing administrative duties and taking turns at being doorman or usher at the theater.

"Blossom Time", the inaugural film of Grandview mentioned in the article, is more commonly known as Romance of the Songsters. It was the second ever Cantonese talkie and also the movie debut of Kwan Tak-hing.

If you're familiar with San Francisco's Chinatown or have ever visited there, you may be curious about the Grandview Theater. Here's a picture showing the theater in 1964 from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection.



And here is a photo that I took just last week. The building is currently occupied by a shop that sells Chinese New Year's paraphernalia, funerary supplies, and devotional items.



Stay tuned for more about Joseph Sunn Jue. In the meantime, check out the links below.

Further Reading

• "Chinatown Ghost Story", SF Weekly, December 11, 1996


• "A Dream Half-Fulfilled", SF Weekly, December 11, 1996


• Interview with Frank Jue (son of Joseph Sunn Jue), October 15, 2005