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Tag Archives: Soft Film blog
September 8, 2012 — Fashion Photos Discovered
Late tonight I am putting off writing a presentation for upcoming October events and browsing the wonderful photos of Li Ling-Ai that Softfilm blogger Durian Dave discovered in the LIFE photo archives. These are all of a United China Relief Fashion show in May 1941 and taken by Alfred Eisenstadt (note KUKAN would premiere the following month in NYC — it must have been a heady time for Li Ling-Ai).

Li LIng-Ai models traditional Chinese robe at May 1941 fashion show for United China Relief.
I love seeing this crowd shot of all the NYC socialites wearing their hats. While viewing these photos, a bell rang in my head and I remembered some of my research at the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library. A fashion show had been held at the Hotel Pierre. Sure enough, I compared a current photo of the penthouse ballroom and the archways are the same. I got chills remembering that I had been to a wedding at that same spot back in the 90’s.
I had no idea that Li Ling-Ai participated in the fashion show when I took those notes at Columbia a couple of years ago.

Li Ling-Ai, with actress K.T. Stevens, James Blaine, Lee Ya Ching, and unidentified Chinese woman
Li LIng-Ai is seen here posing with James Blaine, national chairman of United China Relief and the president of Marine Midland Trust. He was just one of the NYC CEOs that Henry Luce recruited to lead the huge fundraising effort to aid China prior to WWII.
These photos bring this 1941 event to life for me in a whole new way. However, LIFE photographs are notoriously expensive to license. So if I’m going to use them in the documentary, I’m going to have to have a fundraiser myself. Speaking of which… Be on the lookout for our Kickstarter launch in October, and if you’re in Honolulu on October 28, come to our “Night in Old Shanghai” cocktail party benefit where we will pay homage to the efforts of these 1941 fashionista fundraisers.
December 2, 2011 — Gifts From the Blogosphere
There’s nothing like having a cold over the holidays to make you feel sorry for yourself. It’s that old dejected feeling that creeps in as the box of kleenex gets emptied. Now that I’ve recovered, I’m having some belated Thanksgiving thoughts, tallying up the windfalls that have come my way over the past year — many by way of the internet and blogosphere. Recently I made an internet connection with blogger Durian Dave, who turned out to be a very generous like-minded soul with an incredible visual archive and wealth of knowledge about old Chinese films and film actresses. See his blog and Tumblr for hours of entertaining and eye-opening articles and photos. David advanced my KUKAN research tremendously by sending a bunch of choice KUKAN related items to me, including this vintage lobby card.

Lobby card for the 1941 Oscar-winning documentary KUKAN
Besides displaying gorgeous color and imagery, the card had an intriguing embossed stamp on the bottom of it: “STATENS FILMCENSUR 1947–48.” David suspects that the stamp refers to Sweden’s censorship board. If he’s right, that means KUKAN screened all the way in Sweden! So if any of you Swedish film collectors come across 16mm Kodachrome color footage of China that appears to be from 1939 or 1940, let me know! We’re still looking for good partial prints to help with the KUKAN restoration.
My next post will feature the fabulous photo of a jet-setting Li Ling-Ai that Durian Dave dug up as well as info about a couple of other groundbreaking Chinese American females working behind the camera. Why not now you might ask. Hey, I’m still recovering!