This 1932 short film from Paramount was designed to highlight the musical comedy talents of Anna Chang and Joe Wong, vaudeville performers in search of a movie niche. Instead, the film unexpectedly launched the career of an unbilled actor who stole the show from the two stars.
The film is set in a Chinese bar where four American sailors show up for drinks. One of the sailors is particularly aggressive and obnoxious in trying to win the attention of the eponymous Singapore Sue (Chang), who is selling small dolls from a tray and reveals she is from Brooklyn.
Wong, who is the bar’s resident singer, performs a tune backed by Pickard’s Chinese Syncopators, and he is followed by Chang, who offers her own tune. The pair duet briefly and the film is over.
Chang would soon disappear from films while Wong popped up in bit parts over the years. As for the sailor who pushes Pre-Code protocols by trying to pick up the Asian cutie, he was played in a broad and boorish manner by an English stage actor who didn’t get screen credit – if he had, he would have been identified as Archie Leach. The Paramount brass saw something in him and felt he had a future in films. He was signed to a contract and the studio improved his hair styling and make-up while giving him the new name of Cary Grant. You know what happened next.