Actor Vincent Price was becoming a big name in the horror field. His growing list of horror films became cemented with an involvement with Roger Corman, who was making films, cheaply but expertly, for his company, and disturbed by American International Pictures. So the male lead became Vincent Price. The film company was Allied Artists who had been...Monogram Pictures. Allied was distributed by AIP. Corman was also involved with Allied.
CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM EATER had a topical story for then-current Asian fixation in movies and on television. The title was exploitative, and the film was full of attractive and exotic women who could be used in trailers and ads. Even with the budget constants, the film seemed like a sure hit. It was high on my list of seeing. After all, I was writing a book on Asian-American actresses, and they were several in this film. (One Asian-American actress refused, as she felt the subject would have torpedoed her with the Chinese community. The focus was now on San Fransisco's Chinatown, and Japan is not mentioned anymore.)
Having just seen the film in WB's Archive Collection, with its impressive picture quality, my impression was that this film was one of the worst I have seen, if not the worst. There are so many things wrong with it, that not all the points will be mentioned, but let's try--at least with the major points. I tend not to laugh at a film, but this one begged not to laughed at. We dare you, the filmmakers seemed to say. The film's title was considered not exploitative enough, so a year later, it was sold as SOULS FOR SALE.
Vincent Price is woefully miscast. He may have a wonderful voice, and may be perfect for his smarmy, cruel horror stories, but as a male lead who is supposed to be tough and blustering, he misses the mark completely. At his best moments, he looks like Richard Boone, but those moments are in shadow, and Price is not speaking in his recognizable voice. To see him fighting with bare fists and hanging onto a cage for dear life is jarring. One sequence has him hanging from a hook like some butchered meat, but he continues talking nicely to his persecutors, his feet dangling in the air. No, this is not an episode of THE WILD, WILD WEST, and Price is not Robert Conrad.
The script. The film has a great beginning and a great end, but in between another film seems to be showcased. The dialogue comes across as Charlie Chan euphemisms that even Chan on his worst days would not use. Is the ripping-off of actual words used by De Quincey in his by-now classic book? I would assume so, at least partially, but never having read the book, I don't know.
The old love affair between the characters played by Vincent Price and Linda Ho should have more feeling and depth. Ho, her first film, gets a lot of camera watchfulness. In one scene she is looking into the camera, the attention focused on her face for a long period of screen time, as she talks to Price.
The midget. Yes, there is a midget. Actress/singer Yvonne Moray. She has a reputation. Good for her. She plays a midget Asian who can provide a good time to foreigners. She is thought of as a child, but upon closer look (is one really needed?) she is much, much older. And in a cage....
The cage, or rather, the cages. Good for their exploitation uses on female captives and the film's visual promotion, but when Price is imprisoned in one and travels inside his cage that acts like a runaway subway, the cage becomes ridiculous visually. But it may be just Price inside the cage or hanging from it.... I can't imagine Cary Grant dangling from a cage or speaking with a cake-faced middle-aged midget who is hawking a happy-ending massage. Well, maybe I can see Cary conversing with her if we are talking about a screwball comedy from the 1930s.
Then there is the Asian woman who is actually bald and the squawking over her at the auction when her wig is pulled... And there is a silent, slow-mo lengthy sequence that will leave you befuddled into thinking you are in a time-machine watching a Jess Franco film with Lina Romay... And more. Much more.
There are some good moments. The beginning is particularly effective: the herding of Asian women and their fear, even rebellion at the fate that awaits them in the new land. And the acting by Korean-born June Kim (now June Kyoto Lu) as the perpetually frightened Lotus is very good. And one can tell that the Asian American veterans are having a good time. Veterans like Philip Ahn, Richard Loo, John Fujioka. The film is not anti-Asian, as felt by some, unless any mention of opium and tongs is a no-no, as is any entertainment depiction of Asians unless the depiction is teachable, according to a current agenda, as mocking and cruel toward Asians.
Somewhere there is a very good film, even with the exploitative moments, but it is not this one.
