I had my own issues with the film. Again, not with the father. I mean, granted, the guy was extreme, but he was a Quaker in the 1840s. And in the silents I've seen fathers are always interfering in their children's love life, especially if its serious enough to look like someone is going to get married.
I was a little shocked at how graphic the film was - the discovery of the death whale, the long sequence where they peel away its blubber and cut apart its head. The killing of the porpoise and the chase and harpooning of the live whale. I'm used to films cutting away before the blade enters the flesh, but this movie seemed to revel in it. I think it might be because of the film's pride in its ocean photography. There's even a title card at the beginning of the film giving special thanks to the location photographers, and frankly at lot of the stuff on the sea holds up pretty well.
I noticed the casual racism in the film, too. Siggs, Allan's underhanded rival for Patience's hand in marriage, is referred to as 'almost white', meant as a compliment I believe, and one scene hammers home his Chinaman-ness. He rubs a small statue of Buddha and the nails on his finger are long and pointy.
One other oddity that might have made more sense back that. Clara Bow, who really isn't in the film that much, starts out in pinafores, then stows away on the ship dressed as a man, and finally is in age and gender appropriate clothing at the end in that tacked on daisy field scene.
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skiddoo
8 years ago
"Almost white" meant he could pass as a Quaker if he dressed and acted the part. His partner in crime wasn't saying it made him any less of a criminal. Just like the one drop of blood idea in regard to African-Americans, this fellow looked white but oh, we know, his soul is Chinese, his "sinister yellow strain hidden by sheep's clothing."
As you mentioned, the film found many ways to portray Chinese people as untrustworthy and seriously creepy. Why do they call it shanghaied? As many avid moviegoers of the era believed, the next thing that happens when you let them into your life is you will end up in an opium den. I wouldn't call it casual racism. I'd call it overt, malevolent racism. You can't trust those devils so it was a good thing that we barred their wives from coming to America and we greatly limited how many of the men could come here to work. There's nobody more "foreign" in early films than Asians.
One aspect of the villain that a 1922 audience would get was the threat by a Chinaman practically hyperventilating while contemplating marrying the white woman. In their time that meant only one thing: miscegenation by trickery and deceit. For much of America you could hardly get more wicked than that. It's "a fate worse than death."
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