In San Francisco, a villainous landowner with underworld connections seeks to steal the property of an old Spanish family.
09-04-1927
1h 28m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Alan Crosland
Writer:
Darryl F. Zanuck
Production:
The Vitaphone Corporation, Warner Bros. Pictures
Key Crew
Producer:
Darryl F. Zanuck
Assistant Director:
Gordon Hollingshead
Screenplay:
Anthony Coldeway
Director of Photography:
Hal Mohr
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Dolores Costello
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dolores Costello (September 17, 1903 – March 1, 1979) was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen". She was stepmother of John Barrymore's daughter Diana by his second wife Blanche Oelrichs, the mother of John Drew Barrymore and Dolores (Dee Dee) Barrymore, and the grandmother of John Barrymore III, Blyth Dolores Barrymore, Brahma Blyth (Jessica) Barrymore, and Drew Barrymore.
Dolores Costello was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of actors Maurice Costello and Mae Costello (née Altschuk). She was of Irish and German descent. She had a younger sister, Helene, and the two made their first film appearances in the years 1909–1915 as child actresses for the Vitagraph Film Company. They played supporting roles in several films starring their father, who was a popular matinee idol at the time.
The two sisters appeared on Broadway together as chlorines and their success resulted in contracts with Warner Brothers Studios. In 1926, following small parts in feature films, she was selected by John Barrymore to star opposite him in The Sea Beast, a loose adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. Warner Bros. soon began starring her in her own vehicles. Meanwhile, she and Barrymore became romantically involved and married in 1928.
Within a few years of achieving stardom, the delicately beautiful blonde-haired actress had become a successful and highly regarded film personality in her own right. As a young adult her career developed to the degree that in 1926 she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star, and had acquired the nickname "The Goddess of the Silver Screen".
Warners alternated Costello between films with contemporary settings and elaborate costume dramas. In 1927 she was re-teamed with John Barrymore in When a Man Loves, an adaptation of Manon Lescaut. In 1928 she co-starred with George O'Brien in Noah's Ark, a part-talkie epic directed by Michael Curtiz.
Costello spoke with a lisp and found it difficult to make the transition to talking pictures, but after two years of voice coaching she was comfortable speaking before a microphone. One of her early sound film appearances was with her sister Helene in Warner Bros.'s all-star extravaganza The Show of Shows (1929).
Her acting career became less a priority for her following the birth of her first child, Dolores Ethel Mae "DeeDee" Barrymore, on April 8, 1930, and she retired from the screen in 1931 to devote time to her family. Her second child, John Drew Barrymore, was born on June 4, 1932, but the marriage proved difficult due to her husband's increasing alcoholism, and they divorced in 1935.
She resumed her career a year later and achieved some successes, most notably in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). She retired permanently from acting following her appearance in This is the Army (1943), again under the direction of Michael Curtiz.
In 1950 Costello divorced Dr. John Vruwink, whom she had married in 1939. She spent the remaining years of her life in semi-seclusion, managing an avocado farm.
She died from emphysema in Fallbrook, California in 1979.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Warner Oland (born Johan Verner Ölund, October 3, 1879 – August 6, 1938) was a Swedish-American actor most remembered for playing several Chinese and Chinese-American characters: the Honolulu Police detective, Lieutenant Charlie Chan; Dr. Fu Manchu; and Henry Chang in Shanghai Express. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 13. He pursued a film career that would include time on Broadway and dozens of film appearances, including 16 Charlie Chan films. After several years in theater, including appearances on Broadway as Warner Oland, in 1912 he made his silent film debut in Pilgrim's Progress, a film based on the John Bunyan novel. As a result of his training as a Shakespearean actor and his easy adoption of a sinister look, he was much in demand as a villain and in ethnic roles. Over the next 15 years, he appeared in more than 30 films, including a major role in The Jazz Singer (1927), one of the first talkies produced. Oland's normal appearance fit the Hollywood expectation of caricatured Asianness of the time, despite his having no definitively proven Asian cultural background. Oland portrayed a variety of Asian characters in several movies before being offered the leading role in the 1929 film, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. It was the first onscreen portrayal of the Fu Manchu character in film. Oland continued to appear onscreen as an Asian, probably more often than any other white actor in the history of cinema. In Old San Francisco, Oland played an Asian unsuccessfully impersonating a white man.
Oland was the first actor to play a werewolf in a major Hollywood film, biting the protagonist, played by Henry Hull, in Werewolf of London (1935). Once again, Oland's character was Asian.
A box office success, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu made Oland a star, and during the next two years he portrayed the evil Dr. Fu Manchu in three more films (although the second one was purely a cameo appearance). Firmly locked into such roles, he was cast as Charlie Chan in the international detective mystery film Charlie Chan Carries On (1931) and then in director Josef von Sternberg's 1932 classic film Shanghai Express opposite Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong.
The enormous worldwide box office success of his Charlie Chan film led to more, with Oland starring in 16 Chan films in total. The series, Jill Lepore later wrote, "kept Fox afloat" during the 1930s, while earning Oland $40,000 per movie. Oland took his role seriously, studying the Chinese language and calligraphy.
Angelo Salvatore Rossitto (February 18, 1908 – September 21, 1991) was an American actor and voice artist. He had dwarfism and was 2'11" (89 cm) tall, and was often billed as Little Angie or Moe. Angelo first appeared in silent films opposite Lon Chaney and John Barrymore. On-screen, he portrayed everything from dwarfs, midgets, gnomes, and pygmies as well as monsters, villains, and aliens, with appearances in more than 70 films.
Rossitto was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Salvatore Rossitto and Carmela Caniglia, both born in Carlentini, Province of Siracusa, Sicily, Italy, and had a sister, Josephine Rossitto.
He was discovered by John Barrymore and made his screen debut opposite Barrymore in The Beloved Rogue (1927). That same year he appeared in Warner Brother's Old San Francisco. He appeared in the controversial 1932 film Freaks directed by Tod Browning, and another controversial film, 1938's Child Bride. During the 1940s, he appeared in several poverty row movies starring Bela Lugosi. He appeared frequently in television series and mini-series, particularly best known for the police drama Baretta, and his later film roles included appearances in Alex in Wonderland (1970), Brain of Blood (1971), Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971), Little Cigars (1973), and Fairy Tales (1978). His last major role was as "Master" opposite Mel Gibson in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).
Rossitto appears alongside singer/songwriter Tom Waits and Lee Kolima on the cover art of Waits' 1983 album Swordfishtrombones, which pays homage to his performance in Freaks. He also appears on the cover of Bob Dylan's album The Basement Tapes.
Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress whose long career spanned both silent and sound films, television, stage, and radio. Apart from being recognized as the the first Chinese-American movie star, as well as the first Asian-American to become an international star, she was also seen as an acclaimed fashion icon due to her being the one of the early stars to embrace the flapper look.
Born near the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with the movies at an early age and quit education to focus on beginning an acting career. After landing parts as uncredited extras in silent films, she had her first leading role in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first movies made in color. Her role in Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924) helped her achieve international stardom. Tired of being offered stereotypical supporting roles, she left Hollywood for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several plays alongside notable names like Laurence Olivier. She made her final silent film in Britain titled Piccadilly (1929), which earned her wide praise. Her first talkie, The Flame of Love (1930), was recorded in three languages: English, French and German. She spent the first half of the 1930s traveling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. Wong was featured in films of the early sound era, such as Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and Daughter of Shanghai (1937), and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express (1932). These films brought her more and more fame, which she used to express her staunch political views. Although she advocated for Chinese-American causes and criticized the stereotypical roles she played, Chinese press and critics continued to view her as a disgrace to the country. After experiencing the most severe disappointment of her career, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to consider her for the leading Chinese role in the film The Good Earth (1937), and instead chose a white German actress in yellowface, Wong spent the a year touring China, visiting her family's ancestral village, and studying Chinese culture. Returning to Hollywood, she starred in several B movies that portrayed Chinese-Americans in a positive light in the late-1930s.
As World War II rolled around, she focused less on her film career and decided to devote her time and money in helping the Chinese against Japanese invasions. Returning to the public eye in the 1950s with several television appearances, she started her own detective mystery television show titled The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951), the first U.S. television show starring an Asian-American. She was scheduled to return to film in Flower Drum Song (1961) but she died of a heart attack.
For decades after her death, Wong was remembered mostly for the stereotypical roles she was given although critics have begun to reevaluate her life and career. In 2022, Wong became the first Asian-American to be depicted on American coinage when the quarters with her image on them went into circulation. In 2023, Mattel released a Barbie doll modeled on Wong in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
