Monday, September 26, 2016

The Occidental Purist



He's sailing the Earth's seven seas
Assailing the birds and the bees
But broads who work ports
Are frauds, he reports,
"The frails in here sure ain't Chinese."



James Cagney and Ruby Keeler in Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon, Busby Berkeley; 1933). In the film's final musical number, “Shanghai Lil”, Keeler is in "yellowface" as Lil, one of the prostitutes working in a waterfront bar. Title by impurist Donald B. Benson.

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