CATCH A CLASSIC
Star of the Month: Anna May Wong
TCM, Beginning at 7 p.m.
Turner Classic Movies’ monthlong Thursday night celebration of the films of pioneering Asian American actress Anna May Wong concludes tonight with three of her later movies. First is the network premiere of Lady From Chungking (1942). This was produced during a period when Wong was not making many movies, instead focusing her attention on events and appearances in support of China’s struggle against Japan; while Japan’s war with the United States was just beginning in 1942, its military aggression toward China had been ongoing since the ’30s and was a cause toward which Wong was passionate about bringing attention. Lady From Chungking was one of two anti-Japanese propaganda war films she starred in that year, donating her salary from both toward relief for China. In its tale of Chinese guerrillas fighting against Japanese occupiers, Lady From Chungking differs from the many other war films that filled theaters during this time in that the Chinese characters are portrayed as empowered heroes rather than victims awaiting rescue by Americans; in fact, one of the plotlines here finds the guerrillas, led by Wong’s character, trying to rescue two downed American pilots from Japanese custody. Wong did not appear in another film until seven years later, when she took on a small role as a housekeeper in tonight’s next movie, the B-movie film noir Impact (pictured) (1949). In the 1950s, Wong went on another movie hiatus and instead focused on television appearances — including as the title character in the 1951 detective drama The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first U.S. television series with an Asian American as the lead. She returned to the big screen in tonight’s final film in TCM’s lineup: Portrait in Black, a 1960 thriller led by Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn that marked Wong’s final film appearance. — Jeff Pfeiffer