Sidelights On The Film
Chinese Wedding Scene
The Orient and Orientals aren’t what they used to be. The old saying about the East and the West doesn’t hold true either, and living proof of the fact evinced in Hollywood where the East and the West do actually meet.
In one of the colorful scenes of Triangle’s initial production, “Sleep, My Love”, co-stars Claudette Colbert and Robert Cummings are wedding guests at the mairriage ceremonies of Keye Luke and his Oriental bride, Maria San Marco.
For the festive occasion, Diretor Douglas Sirk engaged a good portion of the Los Angeles Chinese Colony to act as wedding guests and to participate in the actual ceremony itself. Then it was discovered that the members of the Los Angeles Chinese Colony were not quite “hep on” what they were supposed to do at the wedding and what form their participation ought to take.
So Director Douglas Sirk had to hire Frank Tang, an expert on Chinese tradtions, customs and lore, as technical advisor on the picture- teaching the Chinese how to act like Chinese.
“Sleep, My Love” was produced by March Pickford, Charles Buddy Rogers and Ralph Cohn. It is tense, romantic drama set in New York’s fashionable Sutton Place section. United Artists is releasing the film, which is coming to the King’s Theatre. Others in the cast beside Miss Colbert and Mr. Cummings are Don Ameche, also in a starring role, and George Couloruis, Rita Johnson, Hazel Brooks, Keye Luke and Ralph Morgan in important featured parts.
Maria San Marco, who plays the role of the Chinese bride, was born in the Philippine Islands and, when war came to the Pacific, was imprisoned by the Japs. After two years, she escaped and came to America. Her first film appearance was in “Anna and the King of Siam”, her second in “Intrigue,” and third in “Sleep, My Love”.