Hi Anne,
I think your points are well taken and love that each of us sees and hears such different things in these films.
Your take on the Anna May Wong thing is interesting also. Do you think that's the same type of thinking that cast Ava Gardner (Showboat), Jeanne Crain (Pinky), and Susan Kohner (Imitation of life), etc?
I'm pretty sure that commercial considerations and sometimes unconscious aesthetic values about what constituted beauty prompted the casting of those three actresses in roles that might have readily been filled by a
Lena Horne,
Dorothy Dandridge or
Ruby Dee, as well as other fine actresses whose full cinematic potential we will never know. While I wish that things could have been different back then, looking at it from a business standpoint, if one had to answer to shareholders, a board of directors and a possibly hostile public, casting men or women of color, no matter how talented, in big budget projects, would have been risky. I can see how that might give a studio pause back then.
The fact that men and women of various races were depicted as more complex human beings in American film especially after WWII--even when they were sometimes played by whites--seems to have incrementally made it possible for Black, Asian and Latino actors to play more fully written roles in movies, (not to mention the pioneering hard time done by such terrific African-American actors as
Hattie McDaniell, Louise Beavers, Canada Lee, Rex Ingram, Juano Hernandez and
James Edwards in the studio era.), all of which was transformed by the graceful presence of Sidney Poitier in the next decades. It's funny, but I think I've grown up much more aware of Black actors contributions and issues in the film world than I'd ever been of Asian-American actors before this.
It's interesting, but after a lifetime of enjoying movies, this is the first time I've ever seen such a range of films featuring Asian actors in American movies such as
Anna May Wong (whom I'd only seen in the very good
Piccadilly (1929) &
Shanghai Express (1933) before this). Really having a chance to see more of
Sessue Hayakawa, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke, Richard Loo, and being able to follow the depiction of this minority group from the silents on has been fascinating and revelatory to me.
Anne, if you have a chance, you might like to check out
Go For Broke! (1951) which is being shown on Tues., June 17, at 8pm on TCM. Peter Feng's comments before the film acknowledge the step forward that this film, so soon after WWII, demonstrated in dramatizing the history of the 442nd Infantry Regiment in Europe, the all volunteer Japanese unit that was the most decorated in army history. Feng points out that this film is remarkable because it acknowledges injustices done to our fellow citizens in a fearful time, while presenting these brave men as human beings and good Americans--and depicted by Asian actors. It's a terrific story, imho.