Spotting the Chinoiserie in Pal Joey

George Sidney’s 1957 movie Pal Joey is a classic of course – Frank Sinatra as the rat nightclub host, Rita Hayworth as the stripper turned heiress who takes a shine to him and Kim Novak as the poor naive showgirl who comes to dote on him. It’s also a movie that shows some great exterior shots of the old International Settlement bar and strip joint strip of San Francisco – the name was, so some say, meant to remind sailors of good times they’d had in the Shanghai International Settlement. However, there’s a few other items of interest too..

But the point here is to mention Rita Hayworth’s chinoiserie heavy pad….silk screens, Ming horses, Guangyin statues…..

Rita Hayworth is the former stripper turned millionaire heiress Vera Prentice-Simpson. She lives in a swank pad up on San Fran’s Nob Hill and clearly has an eye for the Chinois…