Tiger Bay (1934 film)

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Tiger Bay
Directed by J. Elder Wills
Story byEric Ansell
J. Elder Wills
Produced byBray Wyndham
Starring Anna May Wong
Cinematography Robert G. Martin
Alan Lawson
Edited by David Lean
Ian Thomson
Music byEric Ansell
Production
company
Running time
73 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Tiger Bay is a 1934 low-budget British film [1] directed by J. Elder Wills and starring Chinese-American actor Anna May Wong. [2]

Contents

Plot

Michael, a young Englishman abroad, is determined to prove that love and romance can exist even in the slums. He goes to search for it in Tiger Bay, the French-administered tropical "home of all the riff-raff of the Seven Seas", confident he can bring back proof that good in its most romantic form exists even there.

Tiger Bay is noisy, violent and lawless. Lui Chang runs a bar where she conceals her young, pretty, blonde foster sister Letty. Lui wants to protect Letty from the evils of Tiger Bay, and is saving money to allow them to leave. Letty sneaks downstairs to watch Lui perform a new dance for the customers and is spotted by Olaf, a local rough. Michael defends Letty, he fights with Olaf and is stabbed in the arm. Lui assists him, and he is allowed to recover from his wound upstairs. Michael and Letty fall in love.

Olaf proposes charging Lui for "protecting" her business, but Lui proudly refuses his proposition. Lui explains to Michael that her father had been a Manchu of the mandarin class, who had had to flee China during the 1911 revolution, taking with him his daughter Lui and Letty, the child of his English friend who was killed. Mr. Chang set up in business in Tiger Bay, but recently died leaving to Lui the business and the care of Letty.

Olaf drives away Lui's staff and kills her waiter, Alf, as a warning to her. She reports the murder to the police, recruits friends to work at the bar and warns Olaf and his cronies she could poison them.

Olaf kidnaps Letty while she is out walking with Michael, leaving him unconscious. He and the police surround Olaf's cronies, who are either killed or arrested. Michael rescues Letty.

Meanwhile Olaf has been visiting Lui, demanding money for the return of Letty. Lui gets a signed order of release from Olaf, and in return gives him all of her savings. Before he can leave, she kills him with a knife. Rather than let Letty have to endure her being imprisoned for life for murder, Lui jabs her wrist with a poisoned ring. Dying, she whispers an ancient Chinese poem.

Cast

Production

The movie was originally intended to be set in the Limehouse district of London, but UK censors condemned the script as "the worst type of American gangster film" and would not allow a British city to be shown harbouring such a den of vice and iniquity, and so the story had to be moved to an unspecified South American location. [3]

Although a run-of-the-mill B movie, the film gave Wong ample space and time to show off her wardrobe, dance skills and exotic charms. [4]

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References

  1. Fischer, Lucy; Landy, Marcia, eds. (2004). Stars, the Film Reader. New York, London: Routledge. p. 67. ISBN   978-0415278928 . Retrieved 29 August 2023.
  2. "Tiger Bay (1934)". BFI. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
  3. Hodges, Graham Russell Gao (2004). Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend. Chicago: Chicago Review Press Incorporated. p. 126. ISBN   978-1-64160-883-1.
  4. Huang, Yunte (2023). Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong's Rendezvous with American History. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. ISBN   978-1631495809.

Tiger Bay at IMDb