Where East Is East
Directed by Tod Browning
Written by Tod Browning Henry Sinclair Drago, et al
1929/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Instant
Tiger Haynes: Your heathen tricks have broken enough men! You’re going to leave this boy alone!
The last of the ten films Tod Browning made with Lon Chaney was this OK melodrama.
The setting is somewhere in Southeast Asia, possibly Laos. Tiger Haynes (Chaney) is a wild game trapper who sells the tigers and other animals he captures to circuses. Tiger dotes on his daughter Toyo (Lupe Velez) and is very protective of her. Toyo falls in love with cute white boy Bobby and they get engaged. Tiger is skeptical but eventually warms to the young man. He asks him to escort one of his tigers to Singapore.
On his journey, Bobby is seduced by vamp Mme. de Sylva (Estelle Taylor), unaware that she is Toyo’s estranged mother. High melodrama ensues.
This is an OK way to spend an hour but nothing great.
Can somebody explain to me why grown daughters in early cinema are always flirting with their fathers, sitting on their laps, kissing them on the mouth etc.? I don’t think that it is meant to be as creepy as it seems to me now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJwYjcZNt0
