She
is one of the best-known figures of the Idaho Gold Rush era, but even her name
is a matter of contention. She started life as Lalu Nathoy—maybe—but the rustic
miners called her “Polly”—and it stuck. There might be debate over biographical
details, but she is widely recognized as strong frontier women. History and
legend mix within reason throughout Nancy Kelly’s freshly 4K-restored 1990
film, Thousand Pieces of Gold, based on Ruthanne Lum McCunn’s biographical
novel, which opens virtually today.
Technically,
Nathoy’s father sold her into debt-slavery, but we probably shouldn’t judge him
to harshly, given her nomadic family’s dire poverty. Nevertheless, the Chinese
who trafficked her into San Francisco looked down on her, because of her Northern
Chinese heritage. Jim, a Chinese pack-mule trader, purchases for resale to Hong
King, who is supposedly her new husband, but he is really just a brothel owner,
operating in a hardscrabble gold rush town.
Nathoy
manages to avoid a life of sexual servitude through sheer force of will and the
support of a few townsfolk who still take the abolition of slavery seriously. Most
notably, this includes Charlie Bemis, a former Union prisoner-of-war, who also
happens to be Hong King’s landlord. He is clearly attracted to “Polly,” but he
is a gentleman, at least by the rough standards of the frontier.
Anne
Makepeace’s adapted screenplay prints a lot of the legends surrounding Lalu/Polly,
but that makes obvious sense from a narrative standpoint. It can even be
defended from a historical perspective, because all the legends and lies surrounding
figures of the Old West have become just as important as the verifiable facts.
Rosalind
Chao (probably still best-known to geeks as Keiko O’Brien on Star Trek Next
Gen & Deep Space Nine) is terrific as “Polly,” convincingly
balancing her strength and vulnerability. Likewise, Chris Cooper is perfectly
cast as the gruff but sensitive Bemis, an early example of the kind of role
that became his stock-and-trade after Lone Star. Above all else, Thousand
Pieces is a romance, driven by their highly unconventional courtship, but
Kelly and her co-leads never resort to cheap sentimentality. In fact, they banish
all the potential romantic clichés off-screen and out-of-view. Plus, Dennis Dun
adds further messily human dimensions to the drama with his notable supporting
work as Jim the trader.
Before
becoming a documentarian, Kelly worked as a real-deal ranch hand, where she first
heard her subject’s story. As you might expect, Kelly’s affinity for frontier
women is clear throughout the film. She takes no prisoners depicting the racist
anti-Chinese laws of the era, but the central relationship still overpowers everything
else. It is a worthy film that deserved greater attention when it was first
released, so it is nice to see Kino Lorber giving a second life to the
restoration. Highly recommended, Thousand Pieces of Gold releases
virtually today (4/24), in conjunction with BAM.
