Norman Westwood – The Canadian who Brought Chaplin to China

In the history of China and cinema you don’t read much about Norman Westwood. However, he was a pioneer in some respects, showing American moving pictures in the country from around the time of the First World War. He was the manager of Universal Pictures Corporation for many years (17 in all), based in Shanghai at 217 Szechuen Road (PO Box 565 for the train spotters! – now Sichuan Middle Road), and then ran United Artists office in China. Universal was a big operation to oversee in China – as well as their Shanghai offices they had a branch in the French Concession of Tientsin (run by a Mr K.E. Way from offices at 12 Rue Laville – which doesn’t appear on my list of old Tianjin street names I’m afraid) and several others around the country as well as a branch office the King’s Theatre Building in Hong Kong (below).

Westwood’s business was really distributing movies around China’s growing number of cinemas and other venues showing films rather than producing his own fare but he did introduce a lot of American cinema to early Chinese audiences and was a pioneer in film distribution. Westwood would try to get exclusive contracts for Universal films with cinemas – a report of a trip to Peking in 1922 reports that he did indeed achieve this aim with a number of Peking cinemas including the Chen Kwang, Kai-Ming and the Gaiety and also worked closely with the Olympic Cinema in the city (for more on that venue see my e-book Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking). He also secured a deal with the Suzhou Kai-ming Theatre (below).

Born in England his family had emigrated to Vancouver from where he came out to Shanghai in 1916 showing Charlie Chaplin two-reelers and early westerns – as you can see from the article below he believed the Chinese liked a lot of action and thrills even as they moved on from Chaplin to Garbo. He returned to North America in 1937 intending to retire in California (though apparently still had a farm up in Canada) but apparently was soon back in Shanghai escorting a delegation of independent film producers, including Republic Pictures.