vampyrate
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Broken Blossoms
This topic is for discussion of the 1936 film Broken Blossoms, for which Emlyn Williams adapted the screenplay (from the earlier silent version by D. W. Griffith) and starred in the role of Chen.
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"It's all rather stylish and pretty and rather worrying" --Timothy Spall on his costume in Sweeney Todd
"He must have been fun." --Emlyn Williams (liner notes from "Emlyn Williams as Dylan Thomas in 'A Boy Growing Up'")
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3/25/2008, 12:53 am
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vampyrate
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Registered: 10-2006
Location: Northeastern U.S.A.
Posts: 97
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Re: Broken Blossoms
HTRM, I found where you mentioned that you had watched this movie, but I don't think you ever said what you thought of it. I finally got around to watching it last night (and I still have a nice buffer of five more unwatched Emlyn movies to look forward to), but ... yikes! I was really, um, flabbergasted at the absolute political incorrectness of it. OMG, I can see why they don't show it on TV (much like Amos and Andy). I mean, half the main characters are supposed to be Asian, and I think I spotted a grand total of one possibly real Asian person. That was bad enough, I mean we're all familiar with Sidney Toller in the Charlie Chan movies--a slight improvement since at least his sons were played by people of actual Asian descent--but the book the story was based on was called (I can't believe a book with this title actually got published!) "The Chink and the Child." Egads. So I thought based on the change of title maybe the filmmakers were more enlightened ... but, OMG, the "heroine" never once calls Chen by his name. Instead she calls him "Chinkie"--making me cringe over and over and over again. (The filmmakers' hearts were obviously in the right place in their archaic/misguided attempt to condemn racism and bigotry and show Buddhism in a positive light, but it's clear that not very much research was done into actual Buddhism, not as I understand it anyway, having studied it at college and having a close friend who spent a year in a Buddhist monastery in Korea. For starters, Buddhists don't subscribe to Western dualism that much of the character development revolves around, i.e., labelling things "good" and "bad.")
I'm glad the movie is available as a piece of history, and I wouldn't want to see any of Emlyn's work lost, but this really was a hard one for me to watch. Not only for that but for the abominable abuse both Chen and especially the "child" (Lucy) suffer! Also, I predicted the ending long before it came.
BTW, is "Battling Barrows" wearing the worst toupee ever, or what? And did you find Dolly Haas's voice as incredibly annoying as I did? (I can understand why the silent version was deemed superior. I just can't believe it never crossed anyone's mind to hire any Asian actors. I mean could Donald Calthrop--who also shared scenes with Emlyn in Major Barbara--possibly look less Asian?)
OK, on the plus side, it might be more watchable with the sound turned off; Emlyn doesn't speak a word till about halfway through anyway. He's just so lovely to look upon, all dressed in black with that indelibly serene expression on his face--even if he doesn't look the least bit Chinese, with his Mr. Spock eyebrows and upswept eyeliner accentuating his spectacular blues! Nor can I find any fault in his very romantic performance apart from his being horribly miscast along with most everyone else. And all that picking up and carrying of the girl he did ... granted, she was a wispy little thing. While Emlyn may not have been Charles Atlas (thank goodness), he was no weakling either! "Kiss me, sergeant" indeed! *swoon* (Although he never actually kisses her--or even attempts to--as biographer James Harding describes.)
BIG SPOILER:
This is the third movie I've seen him in now in which he's died by fire! (Can you name the other two--set off by a spoiler alert, of course?)
Last edited by vampyrate, 3/25/2008, 2:07 am
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"It's all rather stylish and pretty and rather worrying" --Timothy Spall on his costume in Sweeney Todd
"He must have been fun." --Emlyn Williams (liner notes from "Emlyn Williams as Dylan Thomas in 'A Boy Growing Up'")
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3/25/2008, 1:28 am
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