The Toll of the Sea

Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Toll of the Sea is a motion picture produced by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, and released by Metro Pictures in 1922, featuring Anna May Wong in her first leading role. It was the seventh color feature, the second Technicolor feature, the first color feature made in Hollywood, and the first color feature anywhere that did not require a special projector to be shown. The original camera negative survives except for the final reel. In 1985 the UCLA Film and Television Archive preserved the film from the original 35 mm nitrate negative. Because modern film technology was used to create a color print instead of the original Technicolor Process 2, which involved cementing together two film strips base to base, the resulting image quality is likely better than the original prints appeared [1].When young Lotus Flower sees an unconscious man floating in the water near the seashore, she quickly gets help for him. The man is Allen Carver, an American visiting China. Soon the two have fallen in love, and Carver promises to take her with him when he returns home. But Carver's friends discourage him from doing this, and he returns to the USA alone. By the time the two of them meet again, much has changed, and their reunion proves very trying for them both. [2]