"I speak only dignified American language; get me, Steve?"

Seeing this "East is West" motion picture has increased my interest in the screen just about 99%. By nature and profession I am a humorist and I have sometimes felt that no humor but pie slinging humor could be put on the screen successfully. This "East is West" picture satisfies me that any humor can be filmed. Given the right treatment, humor can be as laughable on the screen as on the stage or in a book. I see that now.

"East is West" is the story of an averted tragedy, but it has humor from start to finish. Not a pie is slung, and yet the laughs are innumerable. Ming Toy (Constance Talmadge) causes many of these by the entirely legitimate means of being a charmingly innocent little Chinese maiden who picks up astonishing slum manners under the impression that they are the manners of "99% American-girl," and shows she is proud of them -- as when she greets Charlie Yong haughtily with "I speak only dignified American language; get me, Steve?" And Charlie Yong -- a humorous character! While we are detesting him for his black heart we are laughing at him as a conceited Chinese fop and saying "I have seen a dozen just like him!" This is art, and first class art, because when the athletic young American Billy Benson comes to the rescue you have a sharp swing from laughing at a villain you hate to welcoming a hero at whom you do not laugh. The humor in "East is West" arises from the situations and characters -- and that is as it should be.

(More about "East is West" next week.)