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For the Freedom of the East, the 1918 Ira M. Lowry silent World War I (WWI) interracial romance romantic love triangle spy espionage melodrama (about a Chinese princess in China during World War I, and she has been leading a resistance group against German spies in China, but she learns that the Chinese viceroy has given his allegiance to Germany, and she finds proof of that and gives it to an American agent, with whom she has fallen in love; she is engaged, and her jealous fiance lies to her and tells her the American is in love with an American girl, and the princess tells the Germans about the papers he has, but before he can be killed, she saves him!) starring Lady Tsen Mei (billed as "The screen's first and only Chinese star"; as Princess Tsu-Kin-Su), Lai Mon Kim, H.H. Pattee, Ben Hendricks Jr., and Robert Elliott. Note that this is a "lost" film which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist. Also note that the movie ends with the Chinese princess saving the American, but realizing that she really does love her fiance, a prince, and they get married. Clearly this unlikely ending was tacked on because the producers of the movie couldn't have it end with her married to the American, due to the great prejudices of American audiences of that time. Finally, note that the prejudices of this time did not end with the movie script! Apparently, American audiences were not ready for a "Chinese star", because this actress, Lady Tsen Mei, made one more movie three years later, and then made a final return to the screen in 1929, when she played the major role of the vengeful Asian woman in "The Letter" in 1929 (the part that would be played by Gale Sondergaard in the 1940 version). We don't know what she did in all the years that she wasn't making movies. If anyone knows more about her, please e-mail us and we will post it here.

Important Added Info: Note that ANY movie paper items from this movie are incredibly rare. We have only previously auctioned a single one-sheet (it sold for $2,712!) from this movie until we received this lobby card!

Also note that cinema pioneer Samuel Goldwyn (one of the founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) conducted an interesting experiment with lobby cards in late 1918, 1919, and part of 1920. He had all of those lobby cards from Goldwyn movies made in a special way. The title card was like a normal title card, but all of the seven scene cards did not have the title of the movie printed anywhere on them! Obviously, theater owners hated the experiment, because it meant they could not tell which movie the scene cards were from unless they had specifically seen the movie. Similarly, lobby card collectors have the same problem, and we have sold many "unknown" Goldwyn lobby cards from 1918 to 1920 over the years! Also note that we have a scan of both the front and the back of this lobby card, which should greatly help you see what defects it has.

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