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Hollywood comes to Melbourne
Melbourne Academic Derham Groves will present the story of the Hollywood star, Anna May Wong, who starred in numerous movies (usually as an Oriental Temptress) and who visited Melbourne to perform at the Tivoli in 1939. Anna was an Art Deco diva if ever there was one!

Date: Thursday 11 Feb 2010
Time: 7:30pm for 7:45pm start
Venue: Racecourse Hotel, cnr Dandenong Rd and Waverley Rd, Malvern East (Melways 68 F1)
Cost: $15 (coffee/tea, biscuits and mini-muffins provided)

Young Australia League’s headquarters, Perth; Fishing boats, Freemantle; Lighthouse, Bunbury; Dolphin spotting, Bunbury (3 images); Ngilgi Cave, Yallingup; At the beach, Dunsborough; James Bond 007, near Augusta; Southern and Indian Oceans, Augusta; Lighthouse, Augusta; Wave Rock, Hyden (2 images); Dog Cemetery, Corrigin (2 images); Town Hall, York; Reading on the beach, Rottnest Island.

Argus 15 May 1924
Argus 11 July 1938
Argus 3 February 1941
Sun-Herald January 1954
Sun-Herald April 1954

I was looking at film clips of Anna May Wong on YouTube. She was one of the actors featured in Hollywood Party (1937), a short film of a garden party with a Chinese theme, held to raise funds for the Kuomintang. I was surprised to see the US comedian Charley Chase arrive at the party driving a mock Dymaxion car. I didn’t realize that Buckminister Fuller’s invention had seeped into popular culture to that extent by 1937.

London: St. George’s (Nicholas Hawksmoor); St. Mary Woolnoth (Nicholas Hawksmoor); British Museum (renovation by Norman Foster); a post modern bank building (perhaps by Leon Krier?); Gherkin (Norman Foster); Lloyds building (Richard Rogers); Christ Church (Nicholas Hawsmoor); Gilbert and George’s house, Fournier Street, Spitalfields; Gilbert and George shopping at Spitalfields Market; Sherlock Holmes statue in Baker Street; Portsmouth Harbour (2 images); Richard Lancelyn Green’s Sherlock Holmes collection at City Museum, Portsmouth (2 images); Reconstruction of a typical 1950s English living room at City Museum, Portsmouth; St. Pancras Station (William Barlow); National Gallery (addition by Robert Venturi); St. Martins in the Fields (James Gibbs); John Soane Museum (renovation by John Soane); Big Ben (Charles Barry); London Eye (Mark Barfield); Sherlock Holmes pub; British Library at St. Pancras (Colin St. John); Millenium Bridge (Norman Foster); St. Paul’s (Christopher Wren). Tibilisi: House; Brickwork; Shoe repairer’s sign; Graffiti; Cafe; Balcony; Coke advertisement; Mtskheta, the old capital of Georgia; Old churches near Mtskheta (2 images). London again (Kew Gardens): Chinese Pagoda (William Chambers); Temperate House and Palm House (both by Decimus Burton, 3 images). Minneapolis: My buddy, sculptor Andrew Leicester. Rochester NY: Clock of Nations (Dale Clark); Highland Park Diner (2 images); my mentor Karal Ann Marling’s house.

Grand Final postscript: How good was that! What a great team Geelong is. Two out of three premierships on the trot. Absolutely fabulous. GO CATS! Let’s make it three out of four in 2010.

Elaine Mae Woo, the director of Frosted Yellow Willows (2007), a documentary about the career of Anna May Wong, visited Melbourne last week for the Anna May Wong retrospective at ACMI. Pictured are moderator Philipa Hawker (above, left), Elaine and myself on stage following the screening of Frosted Yellow Willows on Thursday night at ACMI. Elaine and I spoke about Anna May Wong at the Chinese Museum on Saturday afternoon (below), and then I introduced Shanghai Express (1932), one of Wong’s best and most memorable films, at ACMI on Saturday night.