Java Head & Tiger Bay (1934)   Starring: Anna May Wong Optimum Classic RRP: £15.99 OPTD2093 Certificate: PG Available 20 June 2011

Optimum Classic continues its laudable work in restoring films in their collection, for future preservation and to allow modern audience to catch up with both well know classics and lesser seen works. This month sees the release of a Anna May Wong double bill with Java Head and Tiger Bay.

Java Head is the home and headquarters of a shipping line, whose owner has two very different sons. William has no great love of the sea and scandalises his father by trying to convert their sailing ships into steam, his brother, a sailor to his heart, loves a local girl, Nettie Vollar (Elizabeth Allan) but it is a love doomed to failure because of the long running feud between their fathers. Gerrit (John Loder) unable to have the woman of his heart he takes his father’s ship to travel the world trading. On his return to Bristol Gerrit scandalises the whole of Bristol society by returning with an oriental wife, Princess Taou Yuen (Anna May Wong).

Java Head (1934 - 1 hr, 19 min, 48 sec) is a melodrama, directed by Thorold Dickinson and J. Walter Ruben. It was adapted from the novel by Joseph Hergesheimer. The film is most notable for staring Anna May Wong, who in a time of racial intolerance was able, as a Chinese actress, to carve a career in movies, though in truth she appears only in the third act and then as a woman capable of murder. That said she plays a woman wronged and in this sense provides a very dignified portrayal which leaves the rest of the supposed Christians looking very hypocritical.

There are many fine performances, including an early one by Ralph Richardson, who would go on to take a substantial role in Things to Come (1936). Overall, the acting is rather stiff and at times unintentionally comic, though this is because the film is very much a product of its own time. It gives a fascinating look at the changes in both the moral compass and acting styles from the mid-thirties.

Tiger Bay is a poor area where the disposed and dangerous gather together. Michael, a young Englishman, who believes that love will always win, journeys to Tiger Bay to prove that even in this environment love will survive. When he gets there he gets injured in a fight to help a dancing girl, discovering that she is being blackmailed by a criminal gang…

Tiger Bay (1934 - 1 hr, 5 min, 19 sec) is another melodrama, this time directed by J. Elder Wills

Although the film is shorter than Java Head , Anna May Wong gets a more substantial part and the greater time on screen allows her to provide a more nuanced performance. Both her naturalistic approach to her character and her screen presence makes this a far better role for the actress.

The plot makes little sense, with a gang of cockney criminals engaging in extortion, that is, until you discover that originally it was to be set in London, which for some reason upset the censor. The film company just shifted the whole plot to an undisclosed eastern country, which allowed them to engage in some unintentional racism.

The film still suffers from archaic acting styles; once again there are both comic and uncomfortable moments in the film.

Both film have been restored and are presented in their original aspect ratio. Apart from scene selection the disc holds no other extras.

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Charles Packer