This rare and delicate silent drama, unseen for over fifty years, was the first film made in two-strip Technicolor. Today it might be considered little more than a museum artifact, but not even the predictably heavy-handed period emoting can hide the charm and simplicity of the story, a bittersweet romance about a young Chinese girl who rescues and falls in love with a shipwrecked American naval officer, only to find herself abandoned soon afterward. The production was financed by the Technicolor Corporation, and many artists (Maxfield Parrish among them) were intrigued by the handsome pastel color schemes, highlighted in the strikingly detailed costume and set designs. The screening I attended (in February 1986, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California) marked only the fourth exhibition of the reconstructed print.
Review of The Toll of the Sea
