Daughter of Shanghai was a 1937 American motion picture directed by Robert Florey, written by Gladys Unger and Garnett Weston, and starring Anna May Wong and Philip Ahn. The film was unusual in that Asian American actors played the lead roles. Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Robert Florey was a French screenwriter, director of short films and actor who moved to Hollywood in 1921. ... Anna May Wong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961) was the first notable Chinese American Hollywood actress. ... Philip Ahn (March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was a Korean-American actor. ...

The plot finds Lan Ying Lin (Anna May Wong) and government agent Kim Lee (Philip Ahn) battling alien smugglers (played by Buster Crabbe and J. Carrol Naish). It was also one of the first films in which Anthony Quinn appeared. Buster Crabbe Buster Crabbe (February 7, 1908 – April 23, 1983) was an American athlete turned actor, who starred in a number of popular serials in the 1930s and 1940s. ... J. Carrol Naish or Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish (January 21, 1897 - January 24, 1973) was an American actor born in New York City, New York. ... Anthony Quinn Anthony Quinn (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001) was a two-time Academy Award-winning Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. ...

In December 2006 the film was recognized as a culturally, historically and aesthetically significant film by the National Film Registry ^[1] In a press release, the Library of Congress said: The National Film Registry is the registry of films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. ... The Great Hall interior. ...

"B-films during the studio era often resonate decades later because they explore issues and themes not found in higher-budget pictures. Robert Florey, widely acclaimed as the best director working in major studio B-films during this period, crafted an intriguing, taut thriller. Anna May Wong overcame Hollywood’s practice at the time of casting white actors to play Asian roles and became its first, and a leading, Asian-American movie star in the 1920s through the late 1930s. Daughter of Shanghai was more truly Wong’s personal vehicle than any of her other films. In the story she uncovers the smuggling of illegal aliens through San Francisco’s Chinatown, cooperating with costar Philip Ahn as the first Asian G-man of the American cinema." The term B-movie originally referred to a film designed to be distributed as the lower half of a double feature, often a genre film featuring cowboys, gangsters or vampires. ...

References

1. ^ Librarian of Congress Adds Home Movie, Silent Films and Hollywood Classics to Film Preservation List

External link

• Daughter of Shanghai on IMDb