Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1926 - Feb 1927)

84 Our Chinese Movie Actors Anna May Wong, working her way up from the bottom, has won real popularity among American screen fans. Emmett Flynn, the script called for scenes in an opium den. The action revolved about some lowcaste Chinese characters and led to one of those dives where, in fiction, white girls become slaves of a fearful drug and are ruined. "Do you think the Chinese would appear in those scenes? Not on your life ! When they found out what was to be filmed, they began moving away. Called to go on the set, they would not budge. " 'No, Mis Gubbins,' the leader said. 'Him blad. We no want play.' "They chattered among themselves, shook their heads, backed off. It looked like mutiny. Then I was called, and I had to take great pains to explain that though the scene showed an opium den, the action would teach a splendid moral lesson, and that it was their duty to help teach this lesson. I had to tell the whole story to them, and it was only then that they would consent to go ahead. At that, they didn't like it and very plainly told me that they wanted no more of that kind. It tended to degrade the Chinese. "And they also let it be known that they would take part in no scenes which showed Chinese kidnaping white girls. You remember, back in the old days of serials, the spectacle of the heroine being snatched by villainous Orientals and dragged into a den of vice. It was quite common. The truth of the matter is that fewer white girls have been attacked by Chinese than by any other race of people, and yet writers seem to delight in describing scenes in which young women are forced into underground dives and gloated over by Celestials. I do not believe any persuasion could make my players appear in such a play. It would raise such a storm of protest among their countrymen that their lives might be in danger. They simply wouldn't do it. "As I said, the Chinese believe in honor and honesty. When we were making 'Eve's Leaves' for Cecil De Mille, Leatrice Joy and Robert Edeson were playing with a soon poon, a sort of counting machine on which buttons are strung. Moving certain buttons on certain parallel wires served to solve problems in addition. Miss Joy worked laboriously at the task, endeavoring to help her father (Edeson). Then, suddenly tiring of her effort, she dashed the whole calculation into a jumble. All the work was ruined. The play called for her to receive a severe reprimand. "But, in the eyes of the Chinese, do you think she would get it ? Not a word ! " 'No !' they said. 'Reprimand father — not her. He to blame for raising girl with such temper. He wrong.' "Chinese justice ! "Their ideals and their faiths and their fidelity have been handed down through generations. Their is no more loyal race in the world. Take the case of Choy Sook. When we were making "East of Suez,' he took a fancy to Director Raoul Walsh and Pola Negri. Every day he used to bring Mr. Walsh some little present — a trinket, a symbol, or a Chinese emblem. He gave Miss Negri an odd little charm which had come to him from his grandfather. It was supposed to keep the evil spirits away, and was really something of intrinsic value. "One night, as Choy Sook was leaving a theater, he was struck by a street car and badly injured. An ambulance rushed him to the receiving hospital, where it was determined an operation was the only means of saving his life, and even so, he had but Jim Wang left the Baptist ministry to become a movie actor.