Watch The Toll of the Sea For Free

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Excellent but underrated film

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Yes, this is a beautiful and beautifully shot film, worth celebrating both for its two-strip Technicolor process and the presence of Anna May Wong, but let's not overlook poor old Kenneth Harlan as cad Allen Carver. Carver is the white man who marries poor little Lotus Flower (Wong), gets her pregnant, and then dumps her as soon as two of his 'friends' convince him a white man can't be married to an Asian woman. Carver rolls over with ridiculous ease and flees to America, where he commits bigamy by wedding saintly Barbara (Beatrice Bentley). The two return to China, where Lotus Flower and baby Allen Junior (Priscilla Moran, still alive as I write this and perhaps the repository of some good Hollywood stories) have been waiting for pops to return. Tragedy ensues, but not before Harlan conveys the impression that Carver is the most abject, miserable, no good heel ever to walk the Earth. The man has a million ways to look morose and consumed by guilt, but he just can't bring himself to do the right thing. It's not a subtle performance, but it is a memorable one!

Anna May Wong is a young woman named Lotus Flower, in China who helps rescue a white man lost at sea. She subsequently falls in love with him and they are married. However, after being reunited with his fellow Caucasians that man decides to go home to the United States and marries his old sweetheart. Lotus Flower never gives up the idea that her man will come back for her and tells her young son (the man's child) that his father will come for him. When he does, it is with his new wife and Lotus Flower is ashamed and devastated. She tells her son she is not his mother, but a Chinese nurse, and gives her son to the man and his new wife and commits suicide.A story of such profound tragedy, this is the only film I have seen from this silent era that compares to the innocent tragedy of Murnau's Tabu. Anna May Wong gives incredible depth to this traditional woman who sacrifices her entire life for the happiness of her son and the man she loves. Her innocence is heartbreaking. Her loyalty unmatched. In today's world this can easily be viewed as rather racist towards Chinese – first because the white man chooses a "normal" life with a white woman, and second because her character behaves so inferiorly to him. This is likewise, anti-feminist. While these would seem troublesome today, it does not take away at all from the power that this story emotes.The photography is simple and quite unique in its two-color (red and green) Technicolor. The shots of the flowers, the sea and of the beautiful Anna May Wong emote the simple charms of life in a simpler time. Her loyalty and love for him make him seem proportionately ungrateful and downright cruel. You spend every moment watching him wishing she'd lay a guilt-trip on him, but she never does. By the end of the film you pretty much want to kill this guy - one of the most obnoxious losers in cinema history. As a result, Lotus Flower's hope and sadness, mocked by local gossipers, gives her unequaled sympathy from the audience. Ultimately, this film succeeds because it offers no fluff to its story. The storytelling is classic and direct and lacks even a single gimmick. It has no unnecessary subplots to take away our focus and comes purely from the heart.I cannot say enough about Wong's performance. She gets every note right about how a naive young girl clings to hope and lets herself be broken over love. She was really an exceptional actress and this performance makes it sadder that Hollywood was racist towards her in not giving her lead roles like this. I just saw her in a small supporting role in "Mr. Wu" in which Renee Adoree was given the Chinese female lead over Wong. Adoree wasn't a bad actress, but viewing it today, it screams for Anna May to be in the lead, despite its' racist plot line.Regardless, Anna May Wong really was a ground-breaker for Asians and all non-whites in this early time period in Hollywood. Even today, few Asian woman are given such lead roles. She excelled in her opportunity. This 1922 film that runs just under an hour shows how basic, simple emotions need little screen time to evoke the same emotions from an audience.

Toll of the Sea, The (1922) * 1/2 (out of 4) Historically important but zero entertainment. A Chinese legend says that the ocean can give you great things but for every great thing you receive you will have to pay back double in loneliness. A Chinese woman is thrilled when an American man washes up on shore but after some brief dating he starts to have second thoughts about all that he has promised her. I'll get to the historic stuff later but the film here is deadly dull. This is one of a few examples where it seems there are more title cards than actual screen time. There's no direction throughout as the camera just sits there and the actors hardly move on screen. The title cards tell us what's going on, which is to be expected but they also try to tell us what emotions the actors should be showing us. I believe this was all done because everyone was more worried about the 2-strip Technicolor, which was being used for this film. There had been earlier examples of this technique but this film was the first where every scene was in color. There are some beautiful shots here and the director does try to use colorful locations to brighten things up. In the end, history buffs might want to take a look but other stay clear.

Updating MADAM BUTTERFLY for the twenties was an ideal way to showcase the talents of Anna May Wong, one of the earliest Oriental actors to become a star. The story was further updated, of course, for the theatre musical MISS SAIGON in the 1990s.The early use of Technicolor seen in this charming if somewhat undemanding picture makes the film more interesting than would normally be the case. An earlier reviewer said it ran at 41 minutes, but my version (on Video CD - compatible with most DVD players) has an accurate running time of 50 minutes - perhaps contains more material. Don't know how long the version runs for on the 'Treasures of the American Archive' DVD.Worth a look as a curio, and worth treasuring as a piece of cinema history.