The delectable Anna May Wong has a great role in Daughter of Shanghai, a 1937 "B" which achieved an immediate cult reputation when Paramount suddenly re-issued it twenty years later. Oddly, when Charles Higham asked director Robert Florey about the movie, he couldn't even remember making it! Directed at breakneck speed, the screenplay is not only packed to the gills with action and incident, but a series of arresting characters, led of course by the resourceful Anna May Wong who is partnered by way-down-the-cast-list's Philip Ahn (of all people) against the baddies led by hideously credible, super-sleazy Charles Bickford and smarmy, high society Cecil Cunningham in by far the most impressive role of her whole eighty-plus picture career. Other notables like jealously possessive Evelyn Brent and all-out villainous Fred Kohler also make their markas does Frank Sully in an unexpected hero-to-the-rescue bit.
Yes, the plot may be a "B"-movie standard, but it's given a great work-out here by director, writers and players. Charles Schoenbaum's noirish photography and Robert Odell's knock-out sets also assist no end.
Yes, the plot may be a "B"-movie standard, but it's given a great work-out here by director, writers and players. Charles Schoenbaum's noirish photography and Robert Odell's knock-out sets also assist no end.