aka "Chinese Bungalow". You haven't seen anything until you catch Paul Lukas playing a Chinese aristocratic character with his full Hungarian accent. That aside, I really enjoyed this film with a mostly British cast. Love, infidelity, revenge, rather clever ending. Authentic looking sets, good dialog. Certainly worth a look. I got my copy from Alpha for five bucks. This is a pretty rare film directed by George King. King directed several Tod Slaughter films in the 30's and knows his stuff. Paul Lucas of course, went on to win the Academy Award for "Watch On The Rhine". I suspect he didn't mention this little treasure on his resume.
5 Reviews
Whose idea was it to cast Lukas in the lead?
planktonrules16 June 2011
Paul Lukas was a good actor. However, he was a bit limited because of his very strong Hungarian accent--even stronger than his countryman, Bela Lugosi. So, when he's cast in the lead as a rich Chinese gentleman you are left wondering who was the idiot that made this casting decision! In an unusual plot, Yung Sing (Lukas) falls in love with and marries an English woman (Kay Walsh). Such interracial goings on were very unusual in films at that time--and perhaps it's intended as a warning against this. That's because Walsh is not happy and soon begins cheating on her husband--who, in turn, concocts a plan to torment her and destroy her lover. When Walsh's sister arrives for a visit, she sees all this weirdness and is shocked--and even more shocked when Sing proposes to get rid of his faithless wife and make the sister his next bride! The story is hindered by Lukas as well as a relatively slow pace. However, the story works quite well towards the end--and concludes on an exciting note. Not a great B-movie but a very good one. Just keep that pesky brain from complaining when you see and hear Lukas!!
Another Movie That Illustrates the Shocking Thought That People Used to Think Differently
boblipton1 September 2018
Over the past week I have by chance looked at three movies set in Malaysia and environs: CRAZY RICH ASIANS, a modern fairy tale set in Singapore among the Chinese super-rich; TRIP TO BORNEO, a travelogue from 1907, in which Chinese workers perform grunt labor; and this one from 1940, in which an improbably cast Paul Lukas is a rich Chinese man who marries touring singer Kay Walsh, takes her to his home in the jungle, then brings in her sister, Jane Baxter to alleviate her loneliness. In the meantime, the two women have fallen in love with two stiff-lipped British brothers, played by Robert and Wallace Douglas (who were no relations in real life).
It was the third and final screen version of a novel by Marion Osmond, directed by George King, now best remembered for helming the Tod Slaughter melodramas in the 1930s. It's full of the standard British racist casting that didn't go out of style for many a year; Christopher Lee was still playing Fu Manchu in 1969, after all. Yet Lukas' character is clearly wronged and he is a gentleman about it.... assuming you accept that wives are property, of course, which since I am writing this in 2018, they are not, of course.
In any case, this is a technically fine movie, with some good camerawork throughout by Hone Glendinning and a story that hangs together, thanks to editor Jack Harris. This was not an A movie, but it was produced by British Lion, when it was making a run upwards towards IN WHICH WE SERVE. It turns out that when you gave him a budget, King could produce a decent film, even if his taste and morals seems out of date almost eighty years later.
It was the third and final screen version of a novel by Marion Osmond, directed by George King, now best remembered for helming the Tod Slaughter melodramas in the 1930s. It's full of the standard British racist casting that didn't go out of style for many a year; Christopher Lee was still playing Fu Manchu in 1969, after all. Yet Lukas' character is clearly wronged and he is a gentleman about it.... assuming you accept that wives are property, of course, which since I am writing this in 2018, they are not, of course.
In any case, this is a technically fine movie, with some good camerawork throughout by Hone Glendinning and a story that hangs together, thanks to editor Jack Harris. This was not an A movie, but it was produced by British Lion, when it was making a run upwards towards IN WHICH WE SERVE. It turns out that when you gave him a budget, King could produce a decent film, even if his taste and morals seems out of date almost eighty years later.
More mittel east than far east
malcolmgsw23 November 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Having read the other reviews I was sceptical of their views.Then I saw Paul Lukas trying to pass as an oriental and I really couldn't believe my ears and eyes.It really was a joke.Then the denouement with the poisoned drink.I almost expected Mildred NAtwick to say the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.I wonder if this was made to capitalise on the success of The Letter.
You know I could never hurt you unless you deserved it... And of course you don't.
mark.waltz26 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
A badly cast Paul Lukas is completely unbelievable as a Chinese man in this melodrama that seems as old as China itself, looking like something that would have been a silent film. British director George King, known for directing very low budget film versions of "Sweeney Todd" and "The Woman in White", was at the helm of this poverty row film that has the pacing of a turtle after taking a sleeping pill.
When Lukas meets British Kay Walsh, he wants her as a part of his property and leaves her alone for long periods of time while he's away on business. Sensing her loneliness, he arranges for her sister Jane Baxter to come for a visit, and discovers that his wife has taken a lover. Of course that leads Lukas to plot revenge which would end up with her lover dead and her somehow replaced by Baxter as his new wife.
Another film that presents Asian stereotypes in sinister ways (showing them as honorable on the surface), with vile tempers simmering under Confucious quotes. Lukas makes no effort to disappear into his character, and never even remotely comes off as anything other than eastern European. I should save this film for nights when I can't sleep. It would knock me out faster than chloroform.
When Lukas meets British Kay Walsh, he wants her as a part of his property and leaves her alone for long periods of time while he's away on business. Sensing her loneliness, he arranges for her sister Jane Baxter to come for a visit, and discovers that his wife has taken a lover. Of course that leads Lukas to plot revenge which would end up with her lover dead and her somehow replaced by Baxter as his new wife.
Another film that presents Asian stereotypes in sinister ways (showing them as honorable on the surface), with vile tempers simmering under Confucious quotes. Lukas makes no effort to disappear into his character, and never even remotely comes off as anything other than eastern European. I should save this film for nights when I can't sleep. It would knock me out faster than chloroform.
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