A rare screening of two Anna May Wong films on the rooftop of Ornithology Jazz Club.
Anna May Wong, considered Hollywood's first Asian American film star, had a groundbreaking career that spanned five decades and nearly every medium, from silent films, talkies, and television to radio, theatre, and vaudeville. In response to the racism and sexism she faced as a Chinese American woman, Wong continually reinvented herself on-screen, often with spectacular results.
Shanghai Express (1932) and Daughter of Shanghai (1937) are perhaps two of the most important films she made in Hollywood during the 1930s. Join this double feature with author Katie Gee Salisbury, one of Wong's biographers, who will introduce each film and answer questions following each screening with a brief intermission in between. Copies of her book, Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong, will also be available for sale.
Tickets are $23.18 and nonrefundable. Price includes admission to both film screenings and the cover for Ornithology's jazz club. Cocktails will be available for purchase at the bar downstairs.
Schedule
8:00 pm - Doors open
8:30 pm - Host Introduction + Shanghai Express
10:00 pm - Intermission
10:15 pm - Host Introduction + Daughter of Shanghai
About the Films
Shanghai Express (122 mins), an entertaining ensemble piece, follows a group of foreigners, each with something to hide (including two women of ill repute), traveling by train from Peiping to Shanghai. When the train makes an unexpected stop in the middle of the night, the first-class passengers are thrust into an unforeseen drama and find themselves collectively at the mercy of a dangerous Chinese revolutionary. Directed by Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich stars as Shanghai Lily, with a show-stopping supporting performance from Anna May Wong as Hui Fei.
Daughter of Shanghai (62 mins) is based on a story supposedly ripped from the headlines about a human-trafficking ring smuggling undocumented immigrants into the U.S. When Lan Ying Lin (Anna May Wong) and her father accidentally discover the culprits, her father is murdered and Lan Ying vows to avenge his death by exposing the crime syndicate behind the operation. Government agent Kim Lee (Philip Ahn) works in tandem with Lan Ying to catch the syndicate and at the same time falls in love with her. Directed by Robert Florey and written specifically as a starring vehicle for Wong, the film established Wong and Ahn as the first Asian American actors to play a leading romantic couple in the sound era.