Directed by:
Raoul WalshCinematography:
George T. ClemensCast:
Mae West, Victor McLaglen, Phillip Reed, Harry Beresford, Harold Huber, Lucile Gleason, Conway Tearle, John Rogers, Lawrence Grant, George Walsh, Soo Yong (more)Plots(1)
In San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1890s, a singer known as the “Frisco Doll” is a woman kept by a wealthy Chinese man. When she tries to flee her golden cage, she stabs him in self-defence. Doll heads to Alaska by ship and the captain promptly falls in love with her. Also onboard is the missionary Sister Annie. Headed to Nome to save the settlement house there, she befriends the amoral adventuress. When Sister Annie dies suddenly, and with the police hot on her heels, Doll assumes the missionary’s identity. Using charisma and charm, Annie/Doll revives interest in the Klondike mission, and draws the romantic interest of a detective … “That’s what we need in this town, law and order.” In the story, West’s character goes through a transformation and becomes “good”. Nonetheless, her subversive attitude made the film a target of the Hays Office. The actress could not be forgiven for the sins of Doll – mistress to an Asian man, murderer, and impersonator of a religious figure who seduces a representative of law and order into forgetting his oath of office, and getting away with it all. After the censors had done their work, only a shortened version of Klondike Annie survived. (Berlinale)
(more)Cast
Mae West
USA
Best movies:
I'm No Angel (1933)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Sextette (1978)
Victor McLaglen
UK
Best movies:
The Informer (1935)
Dishonored (1931)
The Quiet Man (1952)
Phillip Reed
USA
Best movies:
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
Song of the Thin Man (1947)
The Tattered Dress (1957)
Harry Beresford
UK
Best movies:
The Sign of the Cross (1932)
Dinner at Eight (1933)
The Prince and the Pauper (1937)
Harold Huber
USA
Best movies:
The Good Earth (1937)
20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
San Francisco (1936)
Lucile Gleason
USA
Best movies:
The Clock (1945)
Conway Tearle
USA
Best movies:
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Bella Donna (1923)
John Rogers
UK
Best movies:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
To Each His Own (1946)
A Christmas Carol (1938)
Lawrence Grant
UK
Best movies:
Ninotchka (1939)
Lost Horizon (1937)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
George Walsh
USA
Best movies:
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages (1916)
Cleopatra (1934)
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Soo Yong
USA
Best movies:
The Good Earth (1937)
China Seas (1935)
Sayonara (1957)
Philo McCullough
USA
Best movies:
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Love Crazy (1941)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
William Bailey
USA
Best movies:
Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Stratton Story (1949)
Philip Ahn
USA
Best movies:
The Good Earth (1937)
The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
James Burke
USA
Best movies:
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Power and the Glory (1933)
The Young Philadelphians (1959)
Jack Mulhall
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
It Started with Eve (1941)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Maidel Turner
USA
Best movies:
It Happened One Night (1934)
Love Is News (1937)
Show Boat (1936)
Esther Howard
USA
Best movies:
Caged (1950)
Born to Kill (1947)
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
Nella Walker
USA
Best movies:
Sabrina (1954)
20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
Hellzapoppin' (1941)
Helen Jerome Eddy
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)