The Letter

Jeanne Engles is almost a physical ghost here. Everyone seems to be in love her as an actress. Based on this, I'm not that hooked but she definitely does get your attention.

In this movie, the racism out in the open and cuts both ways which is closer to the real world. The movie does well to bring that forward. Unfortunately, here, as usual, Hollywood fell into bizarre caricatures and images when portraying the Chinese.

With Anna May Wong in Europe at the time, Tsen Mei is cast as Li-Ti and only manages to extract a very average presence. It is difficult to imagine her as a love interest. (Tsen Mei went on to run theatres in New Jersey) With Anna May Wong in that role (and advising the directors), the movie would have been elevated considerably and the confrontation-over-the-letter scene likely would have become an all time classic.

Technically, this movie is crude, especially the sound but a restored version might be a different story.