Chinatown Charlie is a 1928 silent film comedy directed by Charles Hines for release by First National Pictures. It stars actor Johnny Hines.
One source states that a fragment and/or video copy survives of this picture at UCLA Film and Television Archive. Another source claims that it is lost.
, 1h23 Directed byKing Vidor OriginUSA GenresComedy, Romance ThemesFilms about films, Films about television ActorsWilliam Haines, Marion Davies, Dell Henderson, Polly Moran, Tenen Holtz, Harry Gribbon Rating75% Young Peggy Pepper (Marion Davies) wants to be in motion pictures, so her father (Dell Henderson) drives her across the country from their home in Georgia to Hollywood. After some initial disillusionment, she meets Billy Boone (William Haines) in a studio commissary; he tells her to show up at his set if she wants work. Peggy goes, gets sprayed with seltzer water at her first entrance, and is at first shocked and dismayed to find she is doing slapstick comedy in low-budget "Comet" productions, but she decides to "take it on the chin" and, with Billy's loving support, becomes a success.
Millionaire playboy Fred White is attempting to make chorus girl Evelyn his latest conquest. Evelyn, on to Fred's scheming, has some scheming of her own, attempting to maneuver Fred into marriage. In a last ditch effort to get Evelyn into bed, Fred purchases a diamond bracelet, to which he has attached a key to the apartment he has leased as their potential love nest. When he shows the bracelet to his friend, Howard, the friend warns Fred that Evelyn is simply a gold-digger, only interested in getting him to marry her so that she can gain access to his money. The two make a bet. If Fred wins by getting her to be his kept woman, Howard has to pay for the bracelet and the cost of the apartment, and if Howard wins, by rejecting Fred's non-marital advances, Fred will owe Howard the same amount of money.