***SPOILERS*** This version of "East is West" is a sound remake of a silent film starring Constance Talmadge and Warner Oland from 1922. That version was in turn adapted from the hit Broadway stage play of 1918-1920 by John B. Hymer and Samuel Shipman which starred Fay Bainter as Ming Toy.Lupe Velez plays the spirited Ming Toy with all the energy and humor she is best known and is very entertaining. She likes to impersonate the American women she sees: chewing bubble gum and stretching it out, "jazz dancing" and innocently flirting with men who pass by and throwing them a flower from her hair which effectively offends an uptight local religious figure played by Charles Middleton.Edward G. Robinson is comical villain Charlie Yong, shortly before EGR would become "Little Caesar" at Warner Bros. Charlie Yong is a "fifty-fifty" businessman who keeps three concubines in his home but has grown tired of them; he sees Ming Toy dancing a shimmy and wants to add her to his harem. EGR is definitely a villain but a comedic one. He continually refers to himself in the third person and always offers a cigarette.Lew Ayres is Ming Toy's American love interest Billy Benson. He's pleasing to the eye and very good and kind but still somehow bland in his portrayal. He makes it clear that he truly loves Ming Toy, the fact that she is Chinese doesn't matter to him, even if it *really* matters to his family and friends. But wait...Yes, there is a deus ex machina at the very end, almost tacked on as if White America could breathe a sigh of relief that miscegenation (still illegal in most states) would not occur. However, the authors of the play wanted their cake and to eat it too. It's made clear that even if Ming Toy really is white and therefore negates all the worry of miscegenation, the radically progressive message of "Love is Love" and "We're All the Same" is still there.Also of note, E. Alyn Warren reprises his role from the 1922 version as Ming Toy's savior and guardian and Edgar Norton is very funny as the Benson family butler, who becomes a foil for Ming Toy's antics.Modern day hyper-political correctness will most likely prevent Universal from ever releasing this on any home video format but hopefully it will be made available eventually so viewers can make up their own minds. The copy I watched was in very poor shape but I'm happy I was able to see it at all.

I would like to recommend this picture to you. It has a message of tolerance and humanity. It has three fine lead actors early in their careers in Lew Ayres, Lupe Velez and Edward G. Robinson. It has a fine supporting cast. However, sometimes good messages and talent get caught up in production issues and a script that preaches ineptly. That's what happened here and if you sit through it it will seem like a stern and undesirable duty by the time you are done. So don't.It's not just the presence of actors in yellowface. A lot of Hollywood actors played all-purpose foreigners. Universal Studios made its living off B movies for the secondary movie houses, and the idea of telling their audience of conservative, small-town Americans that they were a bunch of racist jerks would have been foolish -- if it had even been thought of. Any positive message is lost in the idiotic portrayals and the deus ex machina ending.So don't see this one. The kindest thing that could be said is that it has not aged well. To say that would be a lie. It was a mess to begin with.

This is not an easy film to see but if you turn over the right rocks you may be able to. It's fun to watch devout Jew Robinson and lovely Mexican Lupe Velez play orientals (it was o.k. to use that term back then; don't understand why it no longer is....). This is possibly the second of Robinson's Asian portrayals; "possibly" as Robinson's Cobra Collins in OUTSIDE THE LAW is of somewhat ambiguous ethnicity although his mother in that film is clearly of Asian extraction. Seeing Robinson in virtually any film in which he appeared prior to LITTLE CAESAR is both fascinating and of cinematic historical significance. EAST IS WEST is no exception. Don't let your viewing and possible enjoyment of the film be marred by revisionist thinking i.e. it being racially stereotypical and thus now more than 80 years later we should deem it offensive etc. It was a different if not necessarily a better time. Just accept this film at face value as well as in its proper historical and chronological contexts and you might have some fun with it. It's clear to see Robinson was enjoying it all; much more so than he did the somber hatchet man he played 2 years later in a film of the same title. Hope you can find a decent, watchable copy as did I.