Hong Kong, 1950. My parents arrived 1958, too late to be extras.
A busy Eurasian doctor meets a correspondent, and they fall in love. It's the love element that's curiously at arm's length in this wet and cheesy screenplay, not helped by King's picture postcard sense of visuals and reluctance to shoot anything in close up. Dialogue is largely of the 'It is Su-Yin, elder sister' bollocks.
It's somewhat lazily shot as well (by Leon Shamroy.) I do understand what's going on here - it's the fault in many early Cinemascope films, where they've forgotten how to make films - they're so overawed by the width of the film. Apart from the 'pretties', scenes are just filled with spread out characters across the width. Close ups make people nervous.
Jennifer Jones and William Holden - I mean, why doesn't it work? It's no The World of Suzie Wong.
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| The copulation moment |
Isobel Elsom is a horrible bitch in otherwise forgettable film, in which the best moment is a bomb headed towards Holden abruptly cut to a fallen bowl of red paint (probably due to editor William Reynolds). Actually I suppose the prejudice of the white colonialists is the thing that makes it dramatically interesting - or would have done if used better. Philip Ahn, from yesterday's Impact, is 'third uncle'. Yeah, what with this 'third uncle' shit? That family weren't overly formal and cold at all.
A most perplexing film.
Alfred Newman is responsible for the score.
Final scene should have been Jones and her young charge arriving at LAX headed for a new future.
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