The Razor's Edge

Shanghai Movie Producer Wu Hsin-tsai had a brilliant idea. He would produce a comedy about barbers; Shanghai's 50,000 barbers would flock to it; they would talk about it in their barbershops. If each mentioned it to ten customers, box-office returns at $10,000 CN per seat (about 20-c- U.S.) would be incalculable.

Tonsorial Tycoon. An audience of Shanghai barbers was especially invited to see Wu's Chia Feng Hsu Huang (The False Male Phoenix and the Counterfeit Female Phoenix) when it was previewed. To play the lead, Cambridge-educated Director Huang Zo-lin had engaged slinky Li Lihua, one of China's leading actresses, who gets $70 million CN a picture (U.S. $1,400). Li Lihua's role was that of a widow, down to her last dress. She advertises for a husband and gives the impression that she is an heiress. The villain, a wealthy Chinese, reads the ad while in a barber's chair. Fearing his own wife's reactions if he answers it, he persuades the handsome barber to pretend that he is the tycoon, marry the girl, split the profits later.

Far from liking the movie, the Shanghai barbers roared their indignation. Telegrams of protest from barbers in Hangchow and Hankow flooded in. Some 500 barbers stormed the Shanghai theater, pulled the signs down, smeared the advertisements with paint. "They did this," said the dignified newspaper Ta Kung Pao, "to show their disapproval."

Incitement to Suicide? Among other things, they objected to the movie barber: 1) stropping his razor on his necktie in preparation for suicide ("a provocation to commit suicide with professional instruments," said the barbers); 2) absentmindedly tying a restaurant napkin around Li's neck, barber-chair fashion; and above all 3) placing his hands on a lady customer's shoulders (Chinese barbers consider this a grave breach of professional ethics). "We will fight unto the death," declared the barbers, "until the insulting parts of the film are cut." They threatened to smash the film studios, raid theaters showing the film, go on strike.

Last week Producer Wu gave in, agreed to cut some of the offending scenes. His scheme had worked, but in reverse. The oversensitive barbers had unwittingly publicized the film all over China. The box-office take would be huge.*

*Through Pampanga Province in the Philippines last week ran another tonsorial tale: to see who was king of the newly born babies, a bird and a snake had fought. The bird won, but the snake threatened to kill all babies with hair on their heads. The story traveled fast. In five towns Filipino mothers had their children's heads shaved. The barbers had never done such business.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.