Daughter of Shanghai (1937)

Chinese-American woman tries to expose illegal alien smuggling ring.

Director:

Robert Florey

Writers:

Gladys Unger (screenplay), Garnett Weston (screenplay)

Stars:

Anna May Wong, Charles Bickford, Buster Crabbe

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Anna May Wong	...	Lan Ying Lin
Charles Bickford	...	Otto Hartman
Buster Crabbe	...	Andrew Sleete (as Larry Crabbe)
Cecil Cunningham	...	Mrs. Mary Hunt
J. Carrol Naish	...	Frank Barden
Anthony Quinn	...	Harry Morgan
John Patterson	...	James Lang
Evelyn Brent	...	Olga Derey
Philip Ahn	...	Kim Lee
Fred Kohler	...	Captain Gulner
Guy Bates Post	...	Lloyd Burkett
Virginia Dabney	...	Rita - a Dancer

Storyline

In an unidentified airplane flying over the ocean in which six aliens are huddled, alien-smugglers Frank Barden and Andrew Sleete are trying to evade a government pursuit plane. They dump the screaming "evidence" into the sea. Escaping pursuit, they later approach wealthy merchant Quan Lin and demand he take some aliens off of their hands. They kill him when he refuses. Lan Ying Lin, his daughter, goes to wealthy society matron Mrs. Mary Hunt for help. She introduces her to an inspector and Kim Lee, a government agent. Unknown to all, Mrs. Hunt is the power behind the smuggling ring. Turning detective to catch her father's killers, Lan Ying Lin finds herself on a remote island where she takes a job as a dancer in a honky-tonk operated by Otto Hartman, and discovers the island resort is a blind for an alien receiving station. She gets the evidence on Hartman and flees the island with agent Lee, disguised as a man, in the hold of the smuggling vessel. They are discovered by the ship's ...

---

Plot Keywords:

national film registry | crossdressing | illegal immigrant | smuggling | island | 

---

Genres:

Crime | Drama | Romance

---

Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Cantonese

Release Date:

17 December 1937 (USA)

Also Known As:

Daughter of the Orient

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

62 min (copyright length) (TCM print)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Natalie Schafer's first film performance.

---

Connections

Featured in Anna May Wong, Frosted Yellow Willows: Her Life, Times and Legend (2007)

---

Soundtracks

It's Raining in Shanghai
(uncredited)
Music by Friedrich Hollaender

User Reviews

Lost treasure of the film with the great Anna May Wong

The great Anna May Wong stars as a Chinese girl who is trying to track down her fathers killers after he is rubbed out for trying to stop the flow of illegal aliens. Wong the only Chinese American to star in films in the 1920's and 1930's. She exudes sensuality and was a damn fine actress to boot. Here she does it all as she goes from San Fransico to South America in trying to reveal the head of the smuggling ring. Its gritty and nasty in surprising ways especially for a code production. The smoldering sexuality of the dive in South America seems to have come from the gritty films of the late 1940's or the precode films of the 1930s. Frankly this is a lost treasure. This is a movie that is perfectly paced to keep you watching with twist and turn and odd twist. Only when a Deus ex Machina shows up towards the end that it shows its programmer heritage. The cast is a who's who of mid-level stars to be in Buster Crabbe, Charles Bickford, J Carol Nash and some Irishman named Anthony Quinn. This is 63 minutes of pure enjoyment. I can't recommend this enough, and while it ain't the best of the best, its near that.