from Saturday Evening Post
East is West
by Ellis Parker Butler
Notice: This is the fifth of a series of six advertisements appearing weekly in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, written by Ellis Parker Butler, world-famous humorist and author of "Pigs is Pigs", telling America about a new screen play, "East is West." Mr. Butler accepted this commission only on the condition that he be permitted to say exactly what he pleased on the subject.
Says Charlie Yong -- 50-50 American:
"You marry me or I kill Lo Sang Kee"
To my notion the meanest thing a man can do is to give away the plot of a play. I never do it. I have not done it in this series of "East is West" advertisements. All I have said is that Ming Toy, the little "Chinese" maid who "don't feel China," meets an athletic young American (Billy Benson) and is then hurried to a love-boat to be sold into matrimonial slavery. That happens in China and presently little Ming Toy is in San Francisco. I have not said how she gets there, or why. But in San Francisco a new villain pops up -- the 50-50 Chinaman Charlie Yong, who is going to get Ming Toy if he has to steal her and murder everyone else.
That does create a situation! Charlie Yong is the fat-but-corseted chop suey king of San Francisco, and he usually gets what he wants. I don't mind saying he is the most consummately conceited ass I ever ran across and that I felt a most extreme dislike to having him get Ming Toy. Charlie Yong is one of the fellows with such a big lump of grinning egotism that you want to kick him downstairs every time you see him, even if you have to hire a carpenter to build the stairs. It is a genuine pleasure to dislike Charlie Yong; a man feels nobler and better for disliking him. To sit there and dislike Charlie Yong for half an hour is better than going to church. You come away feeling that this is still a good old world while there are people left that you can dislike as joyously as you dislike Charlie Yong. And even Pollyanna, dear child! would be glad -- glad -- glad to see what Charlie Yong gets in the last reel of "East is West."
(Look for my last advertisement next week.)
Click here for a complete image of this ad.
