Where East Is East
About Where East Is East
Tiger Haynes (Lon Chaney), a trapper in Laos, comes back to Vien-Tien and finds his daughter Toyo (Lupe Vélez) engaged to Bobby Bailey (Lloyd Hughes), son of a circus owner who buys Tiger's animals. Tiger accepts Bobby after the young man protects Toyo from a loose tiger. On the river trip to the port, Bobby is drawn to Madame de Sylva (Estelle Taylor). Tiger tells him she is Toyo's mother, who left when the girl was a baby. Toyo hears the truth, and Bobby stays with her. Tiger opens a cage and lets out a gorilla she once mistreated. The animal attacks her. Tiger is badly hurt, hides it, and watches Toyo and Bobby marry.
Cast & crew
More about Where East Is East
Tod Browning directed. He and Harry Sinclair Drago wrote the story. Waldemar Young adapted it, E. Richard Schayer wrote the scenario, and Joseph Farnham wrote the titles. Hunt Stromberg produced, with Irving Thalberg uncredited. MGM released it on 4 May 1929 with a synchronized score and effects, and no dialogue, using Western Electric sound-on-film. Sound-on-disc was also used.
Themes
Background
An MGM picture of 1929, still without spoken dialogue, issued with a recorded score and effects as theaters were wiring for sound.
Music
William Axt's synchronized score and effects, recorded by Western Electric, play under English intertitles. There is no dialogue.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The last film Browning and Chaney made together, and Chaney's next-to-last picture without dialogue.
- Louis Stern plays Father Angelo. Mrs. Wong Wing plays Ming, who raised Toyo. Duke Kahanamoku is an uncredited trapper. Willie Fung is an uncredited servant. Richard Neill, uncredited, plays the gorilla Rangho.
Scenes
- Bobby holds off a loose tiger and Tiger accepts the engagement.
- Tiger opens the gorilla's cage.
- He watches the wedding while hiding his wounds.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Where East Is East.webm)
