This 1927 film, starring Dolores Costello and Warner Oland, marked the beginning of director Alan Crosland’s experiments with the transition from silent to sound film. It depicts a conflict between a declining aristocratic family of Spanish settlers and Chris Buckwell, a landlord with underworld ties, who plots to take their last remaining property. In Old San Francisco a passing narrative runs through a typical example of Hollywood’s “yellow peril” cycle. Buckwell profits from the persecution of Chinese residents of the Tenderloin District but is himself revealed to be passing as white. The historic 1906 San Francisco earthquake brings ultimate closure to this melodrama of racial conflict.

Post-Viewing Discussion led by Dr. Kaveh Askari (associate professor of film studies)