Daughter of the Dragon
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Lloyd Corrigan
Anna May Wong
Warner Oland
Sessue Hayakawa
Bramwell Fletcher
Frances Dade
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In London, Ronald Petrie and his fiancée, Joan Marshall, meet celebrated Chinese dancer Princess Ling Moy and discover that her manager Morloff lives next to them. At the same time, Chinese detective Ah Kee has traced Fu Manchu to London, even though Fu Manchu was reported dead twenty years earlier. On his advice, Scotland Yard warns the Petrie family, against whom Fu Manchu had sworn vengeance. Fu Manchu infiltrates the Petrie house, however, and kills Ronald's father Sir John. Mortally wounded by Ah Kee, Fu Manchu escapes through a secret tunnel into the home of Morloff, who is his comrade. Before he dies, Fu Manchu reveals to Ling Moy that she is his daughter and commissions her to complete his revenge against the Petries, whom he wrongly blames for the death of his wife and son. Although Ling Moy has fallen in love with Ronald, she attempts to kill him, with the help of Morloff's servant, Lu Chung, but they are thwarted by Ah Kee and the butler, Rogers, who are unable to identify the figures fleeing in the dark house. Unaware of Ling Moy's relation to Fu Manchu, Ah Kee has fallen in love with her, and he beseeches her to return to China with him. Ah Kee, however, is held prisoner by Ling Moy and Morloff after he discovers his wine is drugged, and Ling Moy reveals her heritage. Ronald and Joan are then held captive in Morloff's basement, and Ling Moy prepares to torture Joan with acid unless Ronald kills her himself. Bound in a turret, Ah Kee sees Sir Basil Courtney of Scotland Yard on the grounds and leaps out of a window to warn him of Ronald's danger. Ling Moy escapes into the Petrie house, and Rogers and Ronald rush there, finally aware of the passageways. Rogers shoots Morloff's dangerous chinese servant, Lu Chung, when he emerges, and Ronald grabs Ling Moy. She is about to kill him, however, when Ah Kee, although severely wounded from his fall, shoots her, then dies next to the woman he loved.
Director
Lloyd Corrigan
Cast
Anna May Wong
Warner Oland
Sessue Hayakawa
Bramwell Fletcher
Frances Dade
Holmes Herbert
Lawrence Grant
Harold Minjir
Nicholas Soussanin
E. Alyn Warren
Nella Walker
Harry Lee
Olaf Hytton
Oie Chan
Tetsu Komai
George Kuma
Film Details
Technical Specs
Articles
Daughter of the Dragon
Wong, who plays Princess Ling Moy, was born in Los Angeles in 1905 and against the wishes of her very conservative family, had been in films since 1919. She was the most popular Asian actor of her time and was constantly mentioned as one of Hollywood's most beautiful and best-dressed women. Shortly before she made Daughter of the Dragon, the shortage of good roles forced her to spend three years in Europe where she had greater success than in the United States. As a result, Wong had a hit Broadway play in 1930 which was an adaptation of Edgar Wallace's On the Spot. Returning to Hollywood in triumph, she was interviewed by Doris Mackie where she expressed her frustration with Hollywood, saying, "I was tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass!...We are not like that. How could we be, with a civilization many times older than the West?" Ironically, the villain she described perfectly matched Fu Manchu, the subject of her next film Daughter of the Dragon. Paramount wanted to highlight Wong and allowed her to display her beauty and talent and she managed, as she often did, to rise above the material.
Daughter of the Dragon is yet another Fu Manchu tale. This time the evil Dr. Fu has sworn revenge on the British Petrie family, who he believes is responsible for the deaths of his wife and son in China twenty years before. Fu in this film is played by Warner Oland - a Swedish actor who attributed his slightly Asian appearance to his Russian grandmother who was of Mongolian descent. Oland is, of course, most famous for playing Charlie Chan in 20th-Century-Fox's highly successful film franchise until his death in 1938. Before he played Chan, Oland made a career out of playing different nationalities from Chinese to Japanese to Russian. He even played Al Jolson's disapproving rabbi father in The Jazz Singer (1927). The majority of his roles were as Asians and he had made several Fu Manchu films. Daughter of the Dragon would be his last in the series.
The film was based on the novel Daughter of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer, who created Dr. Fu Manchu. Paramount Studios paid him $20,000 for the screen rights to the book, which was then adapted into a script by Sidney Buchman, Lloyd Corrigan, and Monte Katterjohn. The production began at the end of June 1931 at a cost of about $250,000, which was a considerable sum in those days. As Graham Russell Gao Hodges wrote in Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend, "joining Anna May in star billing were Warner Oland as Fu Manchu and Sessue Hayakawa as Ah Kee. Anna May had worked with both men before. Oland had become a rising star as Charlie Chan, and Hayakawa had a very respectable star resume dating back to the early teens. Although Anna May and Hayakawa acted together earlier in her career, Daughter of the Dragon marked the first film featuring two major Asian stars. Also in the cast was Anna May's sister, Mary, who was making her film debut. It was good working with old friends. Like Anna May, Oland, who had played opposite her in Old San Francisco [1927], had a good sense of humor. When he met Anna May on the first day of the shoot for Daughter of the Dragon, he asked her what they were playing this time. When she told him, he responded: 'Husband and wife? Father and Daughter? This is getting pretty incestuous.' Oland received the top salary for the picture, earning $12,000 at a rate of $2,500 per week. Anna May earned $6,000 for four weeks' work; Hayakawa earned $10,000. Paramount also spent a thousand dollars, far more than the costume costs of any other player, for Anna May's elaborate Chinese gowns. She was still underpaid in relation to her co-stars but her earnings were much better than before she traveled to Europe."
Daughter of the Dragon was released on September 5, 1931. The critics approved Wong's first talking picture role and the sumptuous sets were praised as highly as the acting. Hodges noted Paramount's ad campaign for the film: "Its press kit included some fascinating twists on the use of 'yellow faces'. In the publicity for a movie that included real Asian stars, Paramount perhaps made mindful of the spontaneous emulation of Anna May by English girls, suggested to local theater owners that they use publicity stunts to make Euro-American girls look Chinese. In an article entitled "Peroxide China Dolls Rare," Paramount's publicity office suggested hiring "a good-looking girl with flaxen tresses and a straight bob." Technicians were to use egg white or gum arabic to slant her eyes, wax her lashes black and to do "her hair swirled or looped with a tiny forehead pigtail, to make her more Chinesque." To advance this illusion of a blonde Chinese girl, add spiked heels to her shoes, and a silken robe or pajamas of Mandarin red, and put her in a store window. For added effect, she could be given a parasol. Then put advertisements for the movie on "the little packs, which are commonly strapped on the backs of Chinese ladies". The copy on the pack should read, "You never saw a Blonde Chinese Maid." Such a girl, the promoters assured, would bring "scads of attention to any store."
Like its publicity campaign, Daughter of the Dragon has elements that would make a modern audience cringe, but it also has Anna May Wong. She only appeared in seventeen sound films and only a handful of those as the star. For that reason alone it should be shown. Anna May Wong deserves to be seen. And remembered.
Director: Lloyd Corrigan
Screenplay: Lloyd Corrigan, Monte M. Katterjohn (both adaptation); Sidney Buchman (dialogue); Sax Rohmer (novel)
Cinematography: Victor Milner
Music: Rudolph G. Kopp, John Leipold (both uncredited)
Cast: Anna May Wong (Princess Ling Moy), Warner Oland (Dr. Fu Manchu), Sessue Hayakawa (Ah Kee), Bramwell Fletcher (Ronald Petrie), Frances Dade (Joan Marshall), Holmes Herbert (Sir John Petrie), Lawrence Grant (Sir Basil Courtney), Harold Minjir (Rogers).
BW-79m.
by Lorraine LoBianco
SOURCES:
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend by Graham Russell Gao Hodges
The Internet Movie Database
Afi.com
Daughter of the Dragon
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
According to information in the Paramount script files at the AMPAS Library, the negative cost was $268,032.75, and the rights to the novel were purchased for $20,000.00 on March 23, 1931.