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The Forbidden City
The daughter of a Chinese mandarin is sentenced to death for her secret marriage to an American. Their child, raised in the mandarin's palace, grows up and escapes to seek her father, now a high-ranking official in the Philippines.
- Original title
- The Forbidden City
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- —
- Revenue
- —
CinemaSerf
Jun 6, 2022 · via TMDB
The characterisations here are a bit of a stretch, to be honest. Norma Talmadge is "San San" who is to be a concubine of the Emperor (of China) but who becomes embroiled, and falls in love, with the American Ambassador to the court - "Worden" (Thomas Meighan) with whom she has a child. Needless to say, the Emperor is not best pleased and "San San" is dealt with and the baby "Toy" put out for adoption by a family who disdainfully refer to her as the "American". Talmadge plays both roles, the former a little more plausibly than the latter as the daughter seeks out her father, now a high ranking official in the American-governed Philippines. The story is simple, and probably quite typical of the times when any form of inter-racial relationship was somewhat hypocritically frowned upon. Meighan plays well, he ages well, and his character is decent but the rest of this is heavily staged, badly lit and is a meanderingly paced effort that could have launched the career of ten Max Factor's. The sumptuous court settings of dynastic China have to be presumed as the settings and costumes suggest a very basic budget - even for 1918. It isn't terrible, indeed it is quite ambitious, but for me it felt flat and rather sterile.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
Norma Talmadge
San San / Toy
Thomas Meighan
John Worden
E. Alyn Warren
Wong Li
L. Rogers Lytton
Chinese Emperor
Charles Fang
Yuan-Loo
Sidney Franklin
Director
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Oct 6, 1918
