Friday, September 16, 2011

The World of Suzie Wong - William Holden (1960) - Star Ferry, Tsim Sha Tsui

Still one of the top boat rides in the world (so I keep reading, at least) and I suspect William Holden would have agreed (he owned a house on Lantau Island with Stephanie Powers) because it's where his character, Robert Lomax, meets Suzie for the first time.

The boat you see featured in the film was the "Radiant Star" which sadly saw its last trip in 1971 (its first trip was in 1956 - so it was a fairly new boat when the film was made). I'm not sure but I think most of the boats that plow the harbour these days were all inaugurated in the 1960's - but there are three that are still Suzie Wong 'vintage': Celestial Star (天星 1956), Meridian Star (二代 1958) and Solar Star (日星 1958).


Below is a dialogue scene between Holden and Kwan that was actually filmed in the studio (as all dialogue scenes were done this way). The background is back-projected but it's still interesting to see how low-rise the HK side of the harbour was in 1959/1960 and it's nice to see the sadly missed Star Ferry clock in the lower picture.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That clock tower was iconic. When I was in high school at La Salle, I would go to Tsim Sha Tsui at night and do night photography. I have several interesting pictures with the clock tower included. It was a much quainter Hong Kong back then. Any one remember the HKSH bank building in Central?

Phil said...

Hi Unknown, thanks for commenting. I can only imagine what HK was like back then, I'm very envious of anyone who experienced even a small part of that long gone version of HK. For a mix of new and old HSBC images you can use this URL: https://hongkongandmacaufilmstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/HSBC

Phil

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