Limehouse Blues

I saw this one ages ago and liked it. George Raft is not the first actor one would think of to play a half-Chinese, but once cast, given the bizarre premise, he's not so catastrophic as one might expect. The movie is set in London's famous Limehouse district, which was where all the Chinese in the city used to live. It's a combination crime story-romance-sociological study, and as such fascinating just to look at, for a glimpse of a bygone era. The supporting cast is quite strong. I sense in this film the influence of director Joseph Von Sternberg (who is not listed in the credits, I should add), but who was still under contract to Paramount when this was made, and who was attracted to all things Eastern and exotic. A dark, very watchable movie, for those who like such things.

Drawing its title from the 1922 jazz standard, "Limehouse Blues" is a fast-paced, moody mix of crime and infatuation in a seedy London district. Director Alexander Hall and cinematographer Harry Fischbeck maintain a consistent aura throughout, making this film as brief and surprisingly good as a potsticker. George Raft plays Harry Young, an upstart crime boss of mixed heritage (one character calls him a "half-and-half"), who has infiltrated Limehouse from New York. Oddly, Raft needed little makeup to believably play half-Chinese. Whether Harry Young's wardrobe is of English or Chinese make, it is impeccable in every scene and seems to be part of the storytelling. Harry owns and even performs in a Limehouse nightclub with Tu Tuan (sultry Anna May Wong). He is closely in tune with his Asian culture, but that is shaken when white chippy Toni (Jean Parker) with xenophobic tendencies comes into his life. Parker is not for an instant plausibly British, becoming the biggest hurdle in suspending disbelief. Toni's stepfather Pug (malicious Montagu Love) is Harry's chief rival on the docks. Inspector Sheridan (Robert Loraine) has them both under a watchful eye. When Harry falls for Toni, and Toni starts seeing another young fellow (the hint is that he is a thoroughbred unlike Harry), and Tu Tuan's jealousy leads her to revenge, and someone ends up dead, well there you have a plot. Along the way we get slimy John Rogers, always just right Billy Bevans and even an uncredited Eric Blore creating his staple character. In heritage alone, Harry Young would seem a bit out of type for Raft, but his clear comfort in the part makes one think he drew on his New York memories of those he knew to put this one across. "Limehouse Blues" is a tasty trip through the Chinese sector, touching on race relations and self-value.

Casting George Raft as a Chinese gangster was a 50% success for Paramount Pictures. They got the gangster half, right in Limehouse Blues.

The famous English blues ballad Limehouse Blues permeates the score and serves as a background for the story. Raft plays Harry Young a person of mixed race origins who comes from New York to London to oversee his import, read that as smuggling business. He's also quite ruthless in disposing of rivals like Montagu Love who's a brutish thug who ran things on the waterfront until Raft got there.

Love also has a daughter played by Jean Parker whom he beats on a regular basis and Raft kind of likes her which displeases his Oriental mistress Anna May Wong the only genuine Oriental person in the cast. She's not about to be cast aside no matter what.

30 years later the film would have been cast with someone like James Shigeta or Toshiro Mifune in the lead. Even now it could be done with someone like Lou Diamond Phillips or Russell Wong in the lead. Try as he might George Raft just does not come over as Oriental. And on that the film barely hits average.

I hope I gave someone producer some casting ideas.

Paramount "sex star" George Raft's a half-caste who leaves New York's Chinatown to set up shop in London's Limehouse district (thus explaining his accent) where he runs a smuggling operation out of a waterfront dive. He orchestrates a British rival's murder after finding out the brute beats his pick-pocket step-daughter (shades of BROKEN BLOSSOMS) and once the hit's carried out, Raft takes the girl under his wing. He falls in love, naturally, but she's "not his own kind" as discarded mistress Anna May Wong points out more than once and no good will come of it...

In a typical role for the "dark & dangerous" Paramount star George Raft, he's a bad guy with a good heart who does a complete about face in the last reel and it was more-or-less the same 'ol same 'ol for the exotic Wong as well. She does little more than shoot daggers with her eyes at pretty Jean Parker and when she wasn't doing that, Anna cut a rug with George (kind of an apache dance where he throws her around), sang a snippet, and, when we first see her, does a kind of cooch by striking poses a la Madonna's "Vogue" in a slinky black gown adorned with a glittering dragon.

In its favor, Paramount's fog-bound sets evoke a time and place but there's an implicit racist attitude in the fact that Raft's mother was a Chinese princess, something also present in MGM's NIGHT OF THE QUARTER MOON, another "tasteful" tale of miscegenation that sees Julie London's mom an African princess. Intentional or not, the unspoken message is "Well, if it had to happen, at least it was royalty" but, of course, the film was "of its time", a time when interracial marriage was still against the law and although Raft and Wong came very close to a kiss during that apache dance, their lips didn't touch.

I have to smile, tho, whenever I see Golden Age "yellow face" portrayals labeled politically incorrect at best and racist at worst because it shows an obvious ignorance of Classic Film and America at the time. There were real reasons behind this "unreality": In the 1930s, the majority of Americans were white and the majority of that majority went to the movies to see the stars and if LIMEHOUSE BLUES turned a profit (and I'm sure it did), it was because of heartthrob George Raft's many fans -fans who wouldn't have paid to see an Asian actor in the lead. Studios acquired projects for their stars -not the other way around- and besides, LIMEHOUSE BLUES was romantic escapist fare, plain and simple, with any resemblance to reality being purely co-incidental.

"I always wanted to be Anna May Wong. She seemed so much more exotic and exciting than plain ordinary folk. But no-go. I wasn't fated to be Wong, just white." -Paul Lynde

By the looks of it, no one will ever see these comments. But hey, this movie has a great name! What a poignant flavor "limehouse" has! The juxtaposition of "lime" and "blues" gives a great image! I recommend this movie on that basis alone. I think you'll find if you watch this movie, that the name has great significance. I'm not going to shower you with plot details (this being a crime movie, almost anything I say would spoil some surprises) but go ahead and check this one out if you can find it. Four stars for LIMEHOUSE BLUES!