In 2015, the Chinese film industry’s box-office receipts
skyrocketed nearly 50% and the recent Chinese New Year/Valentine’s Day
seven-day take produced a new record of
over a half billion dollars, beating the haul that was brought in during the opening week of the latest Star Wars film.
In light of
these leaps and bounds, it is interesting that, nearly a century ago, a
Chinese-American entrepreneur, James B. Leong, became a pioneer in his field
when he made Lotus Blossom, a 1921
film made here in Boyle Heights. Boyle
Heights Historical Society Advisory Board member Rudy Martinez has extensively
researched the making of Lotus Blossom
and here is the first of three parts of the series.
On June 17, 1921, a time when film makers like Cecil B.
DeMille, Charlie Chaplin, and Hal Roach were “making pictures” throughout Los
Angeles, the following brief item ran in Variety magazine: “The Wah Ming Motion
Picture Co., a Chinese business organization for the producing of films, has
taken a site on Boyle Heights for a studio. James B. Leong, is at the head of
the company.”
A short time later, the company announced that the first
film they would produce would be based on an old Chinese fable and would be
titled Lotus Blossom. With a
production budget around $125,000, and using a mostly Chinese and Japanese
cast, this ambitious new production company was aiming to make its first film a
period costume feature on the same level of the work of other major
studios.
Although this silent film is little known today by the
general public, film historians recognize Lotus
Blossom as an important contribution to the heritage of American cinema.
This Boyle Heights-based production is considered the first feature film to be
produced and commercially released by Chinese Americans.
A nationwide publicity
campaign included a float for a local motion picture parade and a lavish
theater lobby display during its Los Angeles world premiere in November 1921.
Also noteworthy was that the movie featured an actor, Lady Tsen Mei, whom many considered to be
the first Chinese screen star in American films.
James B. Leong was born Leong But-Jung in Shanghai, China in
1889 and emigrated to the United States in 1913. After briefly attending an
Indiana college, Leong relocated to Los Angeles in 1914 and worked in the film
industry as a translator and technical adviser in productions employing local
Chinese as extras. He was reportedly an uncredited assistant director for D.W.
Griffith's Broken Blossoms
(1919).
After seeing mostly demeaning
and inaccurate film depictions of the Chinese, Leong decided to produce his own
films that would, in his words, “serve to correct the general impression that
the present crop of pictures gives of Chinese life.”
In its May 22, 1920 edition, the Los Angeles Herald reported the creation of the newly-formed
company, James B. Leong Productions. The officers were Leong, president; Dr.
Sui Chong, secretary; Low Song Kai, treasurer; and T. A. Russell, director. The
firm’s office was at 804 North Broadway. For a year, Leong worked on several
original scripts with such titles as Devil's
Paradise, and Chinese Princess of
Mexico.
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An article on the filming of Lotus Blossom, New York Clipper, 22 June 1921. From Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. |
In its issue of June 22 1921, the New York Clipper published a brief description about the work
taking place in Boyle Heights just before filming began on Lotus Blossom. By this time, the company had been rechristened The
Wah Ming Motion Picture Company. With a flair for showmanship, the producers stressed the
unique aspects a Chinese American company would bring to the film, as well as
hinting at the physical scope of the production taking place on the Boyle
Heights studio lot.
Technically speaking, Lotus
Blossom is not the first film produced by Chinese-Americans. Marion Wong’s The Mandarin Film Company,
based in Oakland, produced The Curse of
Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West (1917). Written, directed, and co-starring Wong, the film appears to have encountered
difficulties in publicity and distribution. No evidence exists that it was ever
commercially released except for a one-time public screening in 1948 in
Berkeley. Only two surviving reels of what was probably a six-reel feature
exist today.
When Wah Ming began
work on Lotus Blossom in May 1921,
there were two studios in Boyle Heights. The two-acre Majestic Studio lot on
Fairview Avenue, where Interstate 10 cuts through the Mount Pleasant Tract, was
initially established in 1912 by the IMP Film Company and headed by future
Universal Studios co-founder Carl Laemmle. It was here that Charlie Chaplin made several
films in summer 1915. The other facility was the former Bernstein Production
Studios, established by Isadore Bernstein in 1917. This eight-acre lot was
located at the northwest corner of Boyle and Stephenson (now Whittier
Boulevard) avenues. It was at this location (click here to see what the property
is like today) that Wah Ming set up production and made Lotus Blossom.
Decades before it was a studio lot, the property was the
site of one of the most lavish estates in Boyle Heights. In the early 1880s
William H. Perry, lumber baron, organizer of Los Angeles' first gas and water
utility companies, and a Boyle Heights resident (his home is now at the
Heritage Square Museum in Lincoln Heights), had an opulent home built here for
his daughter, Mary (or Mamie), and her husband Charles Davis. Charles died in
1885, and Mary married again in 1888 to Charles M. Wood. They lived on the
estate for perhaps a year or so, before it passed to a succession of owners,
including Fidel Ganahl, founder of Ganahl Lumber Company, which still exists
today.
When Bernstein purchased this parcel in 1917, the former
Perry-Davis/Ganahl mansion was still standing (it was later razed) and both the
Bernstein Studios and the Wah Ming Motion Picture Company used it as their
production offices. A further Hollywood connection to the Perry-Davis estate
was that Charles and Mary Wood's daughter, Elizabeth, married James Stack, and
their son, born in 1919, would become the well-known Oscar-nominated actor,
Robert Stack. (click here to read a previous blog post with more detailed
information on the Perry-Davis estate and the Bernstein studio).
Coming soon, part two of the story of Lotus Blossom!
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! Thanks for the link Rudy!
ReplyDeleteJames B Leong is my grandfather! I am very happy that his contributions to thr movie industry are being recognized.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the detailed research! Is there any chance to have the contact information of Mr.Rudy Martinez? A Chinese film historian would like to contact him about the article.
ReplyDelete