(archive)
A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
Self (archive footage)
Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.
Tajima
A melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut. A remake of the 1939 film of the same name.
The Mole (voice)
In this hybrid of live-action and stop-motion animation, a young Hans Christian Andersen goes in search of knowledge in the Garden of Paradise in order to make his studies easier. Each time he falls asleep, he experiences in his dreams the different characters he would later write about in fairy tales including The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina and The Emperor's New Clothes.
(archive footage)
Este perspicaz documental presenta algunas de las actrices más importantes y bellas que adornan la pantalla grande. Muestra cómo la industria del cine cambió su descripción de la representación del sexo y las actrices del sexo desde la era del cine mudo hasta el presente. Las escenas clásicas se muestran desde la película muda, True Heart Susie, protagonizada por Lillian Gish, hasta Love Me Tonight (1932), mezcla de sexo y sofisticación, protagonizada por Jeanette MacDonald (antes de Nelson Eddy) y Elizabeth Taylor en A Place in the Sun (1951), además de mucho, mucho más.
The Old Man
Yukio, a farm boy, and Toru, a fisherboy, live in a small Japanese village that is periodically threatened by a volcano on one side and tidal waves on the other. Yukio's younger sister Setsu follows then and dreams of becoming a pearl diver. Toru is preparing to go fishing with his father when a bell tolls and a danger flag is hung high on the hill behind the village to warn of an impending tidal wave by the village patriarch, known as Old Gentleman.
Kuala, Pirate Chief
Una familia que busca una nueva vida a través del mar, naufraga hasta una isla desierta. Todos los miembros intentar crear un hogar de lo más apacible pero la presencia de los piratas creará muchas complicaciones.
General Matsui
Guy Gabaldón, huérfano desde niño, es acogido por una familia japonesa, que lo educa como a un hijo más. Pero, al estallar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la familia es enviada a un campo de refugiados. Guy, por su parte, se alista en el cuerpo de marines y, gracias a sus conocimientos del idioma japonés, lleva a cabo importantes misiones en el Pacífico.
Runi
Un joven que huye de la revolución en Venezuela se adentra en la selva amazónica, donde conoce a una muchacha salvaje perteneciente a una tribu. Pronto descubre que los miembros del clan quieren matar a la joven porque la consideran un demonio.
Mr. Sikita
Gilbert Wooley es un mago de segunda fila que es enviado al Pacifico con la misión de entretener a las tropas. Durante este tiempo en Japón, se encariña cada vez más con un niño huérfano.
Self
A behind-the-scenes look at the building of the bridge in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and the preparations for its destruction.
Col. Saito
Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1939-1945), un grupo de prisioneros británicos son obligados por los japoneses a construir un puente. Los oficiales, capitaneados por su flemático coronel, se opondrán a toda orden que viole la Convención de Ginebra sobre los derechos y las condiciones de vida de los prisioneros de guerra.
Inspector Kito
La acción transcurre en Tokyo. Un policía, Eddie Kenner, se infiltra en el seno de una banda brutal de ex-compañeros de armas, dirigido por Sandy Dawson, con el fin de aclarar el asesinato de una persona durante el atraco a un tren de municiones. Sandy salva la vida del policía y hace de él su mano derecha, pero no tardará en descubrir su doble juego.
Sakon Tachibana
The legendary tale of the forty-seven samurai who seek vengeance against the man who caused their master's death.
Joe Hayami
Colonel Michio Suga
Borneo, 1941, durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Cuando los japoneses ocupan la isla, la escritora estadounidense Agnes Newton Keith es separada de su marido e internada con su hijo en un campo de prisioneros dirigido por el enigmático coronel Suga.
Baron Kimura
Al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el piloto Joe Barrett vuelve a Tokio buscando las raíces de su pasado. Una enorme sorpresa le aguarda: la novia que daba por muerta está viva y casada con otro hombre, y un siniestro criminal ha decidido chantajear a Joe para que pilote un vuelo clandestino transportando a unos peligrosos fugitivos de la ley. (FILMAFFINITY)
In a Far Eastern town, a settling of accounts between Western and Asian opium traffickers draws the attention of the police.
Professeur Wang
Superintendent Thomas is investigating a cabaret owner with suspicious actions.
A colonial wife carries on an affair with a French officer, but the wife's native servant may have overheard their plan to leave Africa and return to Europe together.And then the servant goes missing.
Going to take up his post in Moukden, the forest engineer finds in a trainer from the cabaret "the midnight sun" a Russian princess, Armide, whom he once loved. He had met her in 1917 when the princess and her father were driven from their domain. Prince Ireniev is a gambler, a trickster, a matchmaker. Out of love for Armide, Forestier flew, and yet when he finds the two wrecks, he cannot resist. Abandoning everything, his position and his honor, he leaves with the woman of his destiny.
Ying Tchaï
In Macao, where places of pleasure and arms trafficking are concentrated, a tragedy opposes an adventurer and his daughter whom he has brought up in ignorance of his profession. She is torn from her environment and saved from tragedy by a young journalist who loves her.
An Oriental villain named Halloway is called in by wealthy oil interests who want to destroy a dam project for hydroelectric power that may threaten their profits.
Prinz Ling
An adventurer tries to seize oil deposits in Mongolia .
Prince Hu-Long
Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money ont eh roulette and therefore is forced to borrow money from Prince Lee-Lang. The Prince immediately begins to flirt and make advances towards Denise. Advances she rejects.
Ysamo, Kuli
Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.
Iwao Yamato
At the invitation of the Japanese Ministry of Education, the former “mountain filmer” Fanck directed this “cultural feature film” with Japanese actors in Japan, making this the first, German-Japanese co-production. The young Japanese man Teruo gets caught up in a conflict between tradition and modernism, when he returns to Japan from Germany after having spent a number of years there studying. Now, he is supposed to marry Mitsuko, the daughter of his adoptive father, to whom Teruo has long been promised. But Teruo, who has gotten to know the freedoms of the western world, would rather marry the woman he loves and behaves brusquely to Mitsuko.
Sessue Hayakawa
Running Hollywood is a comedy short.
Self
With the advent of sound, the world's leading screen idol, Douglas Fairbanks, experienced a downturn in his fortunes. His thin, reedy voice was not suited to the talkies, his marriage to Mary Pickford was on the outs, and his son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., had replaced him as a major box-office draw. Faced with the Hollywood equivalent of a mid-life crisis, Doug called up three of his best friends - director Victor Fleming, cinematographer Henry Sharp, and production manager Charles Lewis - and took them on a six-month tour of Asia, ostensibly to shoot a travelogue for United Artists (of which Fairbanks was still a major shareholder.) Their first stop is Honolulu, followed in quick succession by Japan, China, Peking, Hong Kong, Indochina, the Philippines, Siam, and India. Fairbanks and company spend time at such noteworthy spots as the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, the Summer Palace and the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum.
Ah Kee
At her Chinese father's bidding, a woman goes to murder an enemy and meets a Scotland Yard detective.
Hideo
Hideo, an antiques dealer in Tokyo, is accused of killing his best friend. In a dramatic court-room hearing, the truth will be revealed.
Sen Yan
A disguised servant of a dying Japanese prince saves articles of succession from a rival faction.
Prince Shan
An assassinated Lord's daughter refuses to marry a Chinese prince but agrees to be his mistress.
Director
Le Marquis Yorisaka
Self
A picture depicting the engrossing adventures of a small town youth in Hollywood and showing the intimate home life of some of the screen's greatest stars.
Self
Another entry in the popular one-reel series.
Tse Chan / The Unknown / Li Chan
The Vermilion Pencil is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by Norman Dawn, and produced and distributed by Robertson–Cole. It is based on the eponymous 1908 novel by Homer Lea. The film stars Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa in multiple roles, and white actors Ann May, Bessie Love, and Sidney Franklin, all in Asian roles. It is now a lost film.
Wang
Mary and her son Buster live in a single room in the slums of the city, having been deserted by their husband and father, wealthy Spencer Wellington. While selling newspapers, Buster meets Wang.
Story
Mary and her son Buster live in a single room in the slums of the city, having been deserted by their husband and father, wealthy Spencer Wellington. While selling newspapers, Buster meets Wang.
T''Su Wong Shih
The Chinese prince T'Su Wong Shih loves Quan Yin, the daughter of a gardener, but his uncle wants him to marry a girl of his own class. Leaving to study in the United States, the young man promises his beloved that they two will be together soon. Having finished university, one day T'Su Wong Shih visits the market of San Francisco, and at an auction of slaves, he finds Quan Yin auctioned. To save her, he agrees to pay a price of five thousand dollars but, not possessing the full amount, he makes a deal with the auctioneer for a three-year extension in which he must work to raise the money needed to rescue the girl. T'Su Wong Shih has no great success until he manages to win a large sum in a lottery. However, Quan Yin is now in danger because a Chinese gangster wants to have it and, to do that, goes to threaten the auctioneer who is forced to comply. T'Su Wong Shih is then engaged in a struggle to liberate his beloved: he defeats the gangster, rescues Quan Yin and claims her as his...
Producer
The Chinese prince T'Su Wong Shih loves Quan Yin, the daughter of a gardener, but his uncle wants him to marry a girl of his own class. Leaving to study in the United States, the young man promises his beloved that they two will be together soon. Having finished university, one day T'Su Wong Shih visits the market of San Francisco, and at an auction of slaves, he finds Quan Yin auctioned. To save her, he agrees to pay a price of five thousand dollars but, not possessing the full amount, he makes a deal with the auctioneer for a three-year extension in which he must work to raise the money needed to rescue the girl. T'Su Wong Shih has no great success until he manages to win a large sum in a lottery. However, Quan Yin is now in danger because a Chinese gangster wants to have it and, to do that, goes to threaten the auctioneer who is forced to comply. T'Su Wong Shih is then engaged in a struggle to liberate his beloved: he defeats the gangster, rescues Quan Yin and claims her as his...
Producer
Japanese architect Yoda is hired as groundskeeper for retired criminal Benson Burleigh.
Yoda
Japanese architect Yoda is hired as groundskeeper for retired criminal Benson Burleigh.
Himself
Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.
Chan Wang
Loey Tsing (Helen Jerome Eddy), the first love of Chan Wang (Hayakawa), is sold into slavery by her father. Although Chan marries another, he still loves Loey; only the birth of a son relieves his unhappiness. He adores little Chan Toy ("Sonny Boy" Warde) even though he finds nothing to like about his wife.
Producer
Loey Tsing (Helen Jerome Eddy), the first love of Chan Wang (Hayakawa), is sold into slavery by her father. Although Chan marries another, he still loves Loey; only the birth of a son relieves his unhappiness. He adores little Chan Toy ("Sonny Boy" Warde) even though he finds nothing to like about his wife.
Ahmed
Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa is cast as an ancient Egyptian donkey boy in An Arabian Knight. The humble Hayakawa rescues high-born Lillian Hall from lascivious pasha Fred Jones. All this brouhaha is actually a dream experienced by Hall.
Li Ting Lang
In a day and age when interracial marriages were considered taboo, film star Sessue Hayakawa rarely got the girl in his pictures. The issue of prejudice is broached here -- and Hayakawa still doesn't get the girl, who in this case is society girl Marion Halstead (Doris Pawn).
Akbar Khan / Hassan
A Persian novelist living in New York throws aside the woman who loves him, and she gets an American woman to help get him back. Meanwhile, the novelist's current novel is in progress, and it's dramatized for us as he writes.
Luk Chen
An opium smuggler is marked for murder in this story of the Chinese Mafia.
Yamashito / Sasamoto
In this picture, Sessue Hayakawa is in a dual role, playing twin brothers. One of them, Yamashiro is serious and hardworking, while the other, Sadao, is a playboy. There is a girl, Toko-Ku, who loves them both, but really prefers the bad boy. Sadao encounters Paul Berkowitz in a gambling den and borrows far more money from him than he can ever pay back.
Tatsu - the Dragon Painter
A wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.
Dr. Chindi Ashutor
The renown Hindu scientist, Dr. Chindi Ashutor, who has conquered plague in India, visits Scotland and falls in love with Kate Erskine, whose sister Mary is engaged to Ashutor's college friend, James Bassett. Although Kate loves Ashutor, she says marriage would make them social outcasts.
Suki Iota
Sessue Hayakawa was making the transition from Asian villain to sympathetic hero in this picture. The plot is a combination of racial stereotypes that were common in the U.S. during the silent era and real-life situations experienced by Asians living Stateside. Hayakawa plays Suki Iota, a student who, while born and bred in America, wants a wife with traditional Japanese values. She appears in the form of Rei (Tsuru Aoki, Hayakawa's real-life wife), a singer who becomes known as the Japanese Nightingale.
Tomaya
Toyama wants to go to college in America but his alcoholic father won't supply the funds. He gets the money to go, however, from Sada, whom he has married in secret. But Sada has a secret of her own -- she told Toyama that she got the money from a relative, but the truth is that she has signed up to do a four-year stint as a Geisha girl.
Akira
Japanese poet Akira living in Tokyo, loves American Ruth Vale, who was placed in the care of Akira's father when her missionary parents died. Ruth returns Akira's affections until she meets Edward, but the American proves an unfaithful husband. Three years later, Ruth is gravely ill while Edward amuses himself with his new lover, Adrienne Chester, but Akira comforts the dying woman with the promise that he will protect her little daughter Blossom.
The American General
A Liberty Bond fundraising short.
Producer
Yukio is illegal in the United States and is used by a gang of spies for their plans. Yukio must steal secret documents from an admiral. When he's submitting the documents to the gang, he realizes what he has done and claims the documents back. A struggle follows.
Story
Yukio is illegal in the United States and is used by a gang of spies for their plans. Yukio must steal secret documents from an admiral. When he's submitting the documents to the gang, he realizes what he has done and claims the documents back. A struggle follows.
Yukio
Yukio is illegal in the United States and is used by a gang of spies for their plans. Yukio must steal secret documents from an admiral. When he's submitting the documents to the gang, he realizes what he has done and claims the documents back. A struggle follows.
Jang Lung
Chinese merchant Wing Lung and Elizabeth Mendall, an American, marry and have a son named Jang Lung. Because Elizabeth wants Jang Lung to be raised as a Christian, Wing Lung locks her in the cellar and she becomes insane. Jang meets Marcell Matthews at an Eastern university, and she returns with him to San Francisco to be married.
Kara Tamura
Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa was one of the most popular leading men in American silent films-this despite the fact that orientals were traditionally (and stereotypically) cast as villains at the time. In The Bravest Way, Hayakawa carries self-sacrifice to the nth degree. He is so devoted-in a perfectly platonic manner-to the widow of his best friend (Tsuri Aoki) that he loses the love of his American fiancee (Florence Vidor). Lost film.
John A. Genghis
Japanese leading man Sessue Hayakawa stars as John A. Ghengle, the Oxford-educated son of an Arab chieftain. Entering into a business partnership with Sir Harry Falkland (Jack Holt), a notorious roue, Ghengle relocates to Sierra Leone, where he falls in love with French-Sudanese girl Maida Verne (Florence Vidor.) Upon proposing marriage, Ghengle is turned down and hotly demands to know why.
Count Ito Onato
Marooned on a desert island, Dr. Robert Farlow and wealthy toxicologist Count Ito Onato both fall in love with Lora, a beautiful Japanese-American girl. Lora prefers Robert but decides to reject him because of his excessive fondness for drinking. After their rescue, Lora marries Count Ito, but Robert, still in love and resolving to win her, stops drinking, and soon attains a reputation in medicine matched only by the count's.
Tom Garvin
Hawaiian prince Tom Garvin (Sessue Hayakawa) receives an American college education and falls in love with Enid Benton (Florence Vidor).
Nara-Nara
Espías alemanes y japoneses amenazan con destruir la estabilidad de Estados Unidos en el transcurso de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Un japonés, de acuerdo con el servicio de contraespionaje norteamericano, tratará de evitar que dichos espías lleguen más lejos en sus objetivos. Es curioso observar cómo al personaje de Sessue Hayakawa, en casi todas sus películas estadounidenses, le cupiera el dudoso "honor" de hacer gala de su americanismo para dejar bien claro que lo de sus ojos rasgados sólo era "un error de nacimiento". Esto daría para más de un tratado sobre la conveniencia de aparentar lo que la naturaleza no nos ha dotado. Disquisiciones aparte, aquí el buen y bajito Sessue se encarga de desmantelar toda una compleja trama de espionaje que atenta contra su país de adopción. Aunque no se queda con la "chica", faltaría más. Concesiones a los emigrados las que sea menester, pero tampoco sin pasarse.
Arai Takada
While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono. There she meets the wealthy Arai Takada, who is taken by the mysterious woman. Alan has dishonored and betrayed O'Mitsu, and her brother Arai plans a terrible revenge.
Sato
Sato (Sessue Hayakawa) faithfully works for importer James Thornton (James Neill). When the old man dies, he leaves his daughter Mildred (Vivian Martin) in Sato's care. Sato loves the girl, but as he is Japanese he cannot hope to ever marry her (at least not in the racially prejudiced era of the early 1900s). Besides, Mildred loves Harry Maxwell (Tom Forman), who was raised alongside her.
Lopaka
Lopaka, a poor Hawaiian fisherman, falls in love with Kokua, a young girl of royal blood. Her father refuses to let him marry her, though, unless Lopaka can bring him two feather cloaks from a rare bird. While searching the mountains for the bird, Lopaka encounters a dying priest of Pele who sells him a wishing bottle in which Kono, the god of the volcanos, is confined.
Azimoolah
Maj. Ralph Seton is a British army officer stationed in Cawnpore, India, when the Sepoy Rebellion--a mutiny of Indian soldiers in the Brtitish army in India--breaks out in 1857. He receives the prestigious Victoria Cross--the highest decoration that can be awarded to a British soldier--for his actions in battle. However, after a night of drunken debauchery, he is stripped of the honor and disgraced in front of his love, Joan Strathallen, the daughter of his commanding officer. When Indian rebel leader Azimoolah instigates an uprising by the natives and has Joan kidnapped, Seton sets out to redeem his honor and save the woman he loves.
Makino
Makino works for Kayosho, a Japanese curio dealer in America. To reward Makino's dedication, Kayosho sends for Toki-ye, a picture bride. Upon arrival, she is married to Makino in a civil ceremony. However, Kayosho intends to keep Toki-ye for himself. This angers Goto, another employee. Kayosho was betrothed to Goto's niece, Hana. One day Kayosho is found dead in a pool.
Opera Admirer
Opera singer Renee Dupree is in love with struggling composer Julian who falls very seriously ill. She goes to impresario Mueller for the money Julian needs but is saved from sacrificing her virtue when a jealous lover kills Mueller.
Hishuru Tori [Haka Arakau]
A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.
Lin Foo
Blanche Sweet has a dual role in this picture -- she plays twin sisters, Edith, a sweet, normal young girl, and Grace, who is a drug fiend. They live in poverty with their parents and their father (Hal Clements) finally finds work. Because he is faithful to his boss (Thomas Meighan), he is offered a partnership.
Nogi
Russian brothers Count Boris and Alexis Rabourdin obtain a Japanese coastline defense map and plan to sell it to German agents in London. In America, Alexis schemes to marry wealthy Eve Bertram, who loves him. Boris, meanwhile, falls in love with Christine Lesley, Eve's neighbor whom Eve's brother Guy, an amateur inventor experimenting with explosives, also loves.
Tiah - Gray Otter's Son
A film about Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter who sends his son Tiah off to a "white man's school" so that he can become a great leader. The son returns home as a worthless drunk, disappointing the father but things get worse when the son joins a group of renegades and robs a payroll. The father is then forced to make a decision.
Tokorama
Tokoramo, a Japanese diplomat on a mission to Paris, begins a love affair with Helene, a chorus girl, who subsequently rejects her American fiancé, Richard Bernisky. When the Japanese discover the affair, they try to force Tokoramo to end it, but Helene refuses to stop visiting him. One night, during one of her visits, Bernisky comes to Tokoramo's apartment and, while Helene hides, rebukes her to her lover. After Bernisky leaves, Tokoramo orders Helene out, but when he realizes his love for her, he calls her back. Suddenly, she rejects and insults him to the point that he strangles her. Tokoramo wants to confess his crime, but he must complete his work, and so his countrymen sacrifice a boy, Hironari, who pleads guilty to the murder and eventually is guillotined. In the end, Tokoramo also dies and his colleagues burn his valuable papers in order to protect Japan. -From the TCM.com Database, powered by the AFI.
Running Wolf
A Native American warrior travels to a faraway tribe to find and defend a woman that haunts his dreams.
Lord Yamaki
An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.
Yorotomo
A silent melodrama from the very first series of American films to use a Japanese cast. The scenes of the story are laid in Japan during the last revolution in the late '60's.
