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Lotus Blossom
Producer James B. Leong’s career started in the silent era, first as a China technical advisor for studios like Lasky and Ince, and subsequently acting in over 80 films until the 1960s. Lotus Blossom was his only fin- ished production, a color-tinted silent film that embodied his ambitions to make movies about the Chinese. It starred Lady Tsen Mei, a vaudeville singer of mixed Chinese, white, and Black heritage, who had been publicized as “The Screen’s First and Only Chinese Star” for her 1918 debut film, For the Freedom of the East (1918)—four years before Anna May Wong’s breakthrough film The Toll of the Sea (1922). Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive, only one of Lotus Blossom 's five reels has survived, which will be screened in this program.
DIRECTORS: Frank Grandon, James B. Leong.
WRITTEN BY: George Yohalem, Charles Furthman.
STORY BY: James B. Leong.
CAST: Lady Tsen Mei, Tully Marshall, Noah Beery, Jack Abbe. 1921. 10 min. (fragment) USA. B&W. Silent. 35mm. Print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive.
The Letter
One of Paramount’s first sound films, The Letter is Lotus Blossom (1921) actor Lady Tsen Mei’s final known feature film appearance. She’s cast as a conniving nightspot propri- etor (opium and slave girls are on the menu, of course) caught in a deadly lover’s triangle. Adapted from a W. Somerset Maugham play set in the East Indies, The Letter also stars former Ziegfeld showgirl Jeanne Eagels whose performance as a murderess was nominated by the Academy for a posthumous Best Actress Oscar. There are racist slurs and stereotypes throughout, but stay seated for Lady Tsen Mei’s impassioned lashing of Eagels and her white conceit.
DIRECTOR: Jean de Limur.
WRITTEN BY: Garrett Fort.
CAST: Jeanne Eagels, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Lady Tsen Mei.
1929. 62 min. USA. B&W. English. 35mm.
Restored by the Library of Congress and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Print courtesy of The Film Foundation Collection at the Academy Film Archive.
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