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Toll Of The Sea (1922)
Topic Started: Nov 27 2007, 07:02 AM (400 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Time being at a premium these days, I'm still delightedly workin' my way through the first Treasures from American Film Archives set, and discovering everything from little 2-min. snippets of life captured on film a century ago to full-length motion pictures of power and beauty.

Toll of the Sea was produced by the Technicolor Corporation to show off their fancy 2-strip Technicolor process; it's a ripoff of Madame Butterfly, but quite a good one -- and the fact that the first successful Technicolor feature still exists (and with the original score intact, yet) is amazing enough. 17-year-old Anna May Wong stars as Lotus Flower, a Chinese maiden who marries an American sailor. He leaves her and goes back to America and his old sweetheart; Lotus bears him a son and waits patiently on the shore for his return. Despite its primitiveness, the 2-strip color is very impressive (it was meant to be; lots of shots of the flower gardens) in this film, which shows off the splendors of the Far East by being shot in Santa Monica.

The best thing about it is Miss Wong, who is nothing less than wonderful in it. Her subtle changes of emotion touched me, and I can see why she became the first successful actress of her race on Western screens. Great stuff.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Frank Hale
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Here’s your trivia for today:

The terminology “two-strip” Technicolor is technically incorrect because, unlike the later process, two frames (red and green) were photographed simultaneously on a single strip of film. The frames were combined in the printing process to produce the final film. Therefore, purists prefer to say “two-color" Technicolor.

It is satisfying that they were able to dredge up the original Technicolor equipment to restore the ending of the film.

As to the film itself, apparently Kenneth Harlan had a long career as a leading man in silent pictures, but it was a bit of a shock to see him here. At least he turned rat in the end.
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