The World of Suzie Wong (1960)

Film: The World of Suzie Wong (1960)
Stars: William Holden, Nancy Kwan, Sylvia Syms, Michael Wilding
Director: Richard Quine
Oscar History: No nominations, though Kwan won the Best Newcomer Golden Globe and was nominated for Actress in a Drama, which generally would indicate she was close to getting a nomination.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Nancy Kwan-click here to learn more about Ms. Kwan (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Nancy Kwan's stardom almost certainly wouldn't have happened were it not for Marlon Brando's wandering eye.  Kwan had been understudying the role of Suzie Wong in the national touring production of the play, which starred actress France Nuyen in the lead role.  Nuyen was more famous than Kwan due to her role in the blockbuster South Pacific, and as a result was the frontrunner for the film part opposite William Holden, even though some (including star William Holden) had preferred Kwan's audition, and so Nuyen was hired to the lead (with Kwan getting the consolation of the part on Broadway).  However, Nuyen's troubled relationship with Marlon Brando, whom she suspected was cheating on her (and knowing Brando, he probably was), caused her to gain weight on the set & not to be able to handle playing the part.  She was fired, and Paramount hired Kwan as the female lead (weirdly, two years after Suzie Wong, Nuyen would costar with Holden in Satan Never Sleeps, so there wasn't too much ill-will from this situation with either party).  And thus, Kwan had something very rare for an Asian-American actress in 1960's Hollywood-the opportunity to play the lead in a major studio motion picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Robert Lomax (Holden), a struggling artist living in late-1950's Hong Kong.  In the opening scene he meets a girl named Mei Ling (Kwan) on a boat who seems to be the over-privileged daughter of a wealthy Chinese figure, who accuses him of stealing her purse.  When Lomax accidentally books a hotel in a red light, he realizes the girl is not the daughter of a wealthy man, but a verbose prostitute who goes by Suzie Wong.  The film chronicles his complicated relationship with Suzie, who is secretive (she will learn about you, but doesn't want you to know too much about her), and of course their relationship breaks both racial & class norms considering she is a Hong Kong prostitute and he's a painter with connections to wealth (but he himself doesn't have money).  The film has some dark turns in its second act (we learn that Suzie's got a secret son and that Sylvia Sims' Kay, Suzie's rival for Robert's affections, is not the open-minded progressive she seems to be when it comes to fighting for his heart), but overall it's a pretty light movie up until the last thirty minutes, a romantic drama with some comic elements.

The film is really hard to review for someone modern-day.  The movie is interesting in the sense that Suzie is a fully-fleshed character-this is very much her story, not Robert's, and she's not a side distraction as he figures out his next move.  But this is also a movie that deals with a lot of stereotypes about Asian women (exoticizing them, making all of the named female Asian characters play prostitutes, and she does play a subservient role to Robert).  Robert is occasionally violent with Suzie, and Suzie seems to encourage this as a sign of affection, something we wouldn't allow in a modern film, and it's by-far the most uncomfortable aspect of the movie.  But it was also a step forward for Hollywood to have any Asian actress getting such a significant role.  While actors like France Nuyen & Miyoshi Umeki were getting important roles in movies, they weren't leads, and really Kwan was the first actress since Silent Film Star Anna May Wong to be afforded an opportunity like Suzie Wong.  Along with James Shigeta (her future costar) getting to play a lead role in Columbia's The Crimson Kimono the year before, in 1960 we were seeing a brief moment where Hollywood was willing to give Asian actors the kind of stardom that had eluded them since the Silent Era.

And Nancy Kwan took that opportunity & made it her own.  She's the best part of the film, and while the character is problematic & occasionally you can see that this is her first movie (certain line readings feel a bit rehearsed), you can't deny she's an intoxicating film presence.  She makes Suzie her own & runs with it, completely crafting a character that feels three-dimensional as the movie wears on.  While the film itself gets too heavy-handed (though the bay shots in Hong Kong are gorgeous, and kind of jaw-dropping to see such well-lit location shoots in the 1950's), especially in the back-half, it's the sort of role that would've normally gotten her Oscar talk, and given her Globe nomination, one has to wonder if she was somewhat close to being the first openly-Asian actress to ever be nominated for an Oscar (Merle Oberon was not open about her ethnicity, and is to-date the only Asian actress to be cited for Best Actress).  The box office wouldn't have hurt her AMPAS case-Suzie Wong was a smash hit, becoming Paramount's second-biggest hit of the year after Psycho, and gave the studio an overnight sensation star that didn't fit their typical mold.  Unlike Lena Horne earlier this year, though, Kwan would be able to follow up Suzie Wong with a groundbreaking musical...which we will take a look at next week.