This TV pilot starring Barbara Stanwyck was shown on her short-lived eponymous TV series, a fun showcase for her "bad girl" talents. Set in Hong Kong and Macao, it demonstrates how to make an international subject show on shoestring.
She plays Little Joe (a/k/a Josephine Little) a notorious American who is always up to no good on the wrong side of the law in the Far East. Anna May Wong plays her sidekick A-Hsing, quite delightful delivering wisecracks in deadpan fashion, trying to keep Barb from getting arrested or worse.
In the brief 1/2 hour segment, Barb gets into lots of trouble, cheating at poker, indulging her boyfriend Steve (Charles H. Grey) in his goofball schemes -always in vain hope of marrying the big lug, and sparring with oily George Givot, who only wants her to return to dealing black jack at his casino.
It's 1960, yet the script includes references to the Gulf of Tonkin and Steve in danger of being locked away in a rat-infested Communist prison, long before the VIetnam War was heating up. A second episode was shown the following year with several of these characters returning, including, sadly, Anna May Wong in her final screen role.
She plays Little Joe (a/k/a Josephine Little) a notorious American who is always up to no good on the wrong side of the law in the Far East. Anna May Wong plays her sidekick A-Hsing, quite delightful delivering wisecracks in deadpan fashion, trying to keep Barb from getting arrested or worse.
In the brief 1/2 hour segment, Barb gets into lots of trouble, cheating at poker, indulging her boyfriend Steve (Charles H. Grey) in his goofball schemes -always in vain hope of marrying the big lug, and sparring with oily George Givot, who only wants her to return to dealing black jack at his casino.
It's 1960, yet the script includes references to the Gulf of Tonkin and Steve in danger of being locked away in a rat-infested Communist prison, long before the VIetnam War was heating up. A second episode was shown the following year with several of these characters returning, including, sadly, Anna May Wong in her final screen role.
