Friday, February 3, 2012

The World of Suzie Wong - William Holden (1960) - Square Street, Hong Kong

A fleeting glimpse of the road(s) around the Man Mo Temple as Holden gets driven home by the daughter of the banks boss. The Square Street and Ladder Street intersection is still recognisable today even though the old buildings have long been replaced by not-quite-as-old-but getting-there buildings.


The thing that has changed is the number of people here. These days the place is deserted, but judging from the film (and there are just too many people there for them to all be extras) it was a hive of activity in the late '50's.

2 comments:

Scott said...

These are very interesting and informative posts for someone like me— who loves seeing films shot in HK in the 50s and 60s.

AKAIK, I have yet to see any shot in Macau in that era.

Here is a flickr set where I put a few then-and-now composite photos of some landmarks around Taiwan (mostly Taipei).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21506490@N00/sets/72157602583636536/

Phil said...

Hi Scott, many thanks for commenting. I'm a big believer in the usefulness of film as a means of documenting things like this. I have a list of about 80 films that have at least been partially film in HK (and Macau) but it's a hard job tracking down viewable copies of them. I am sure many have shots of Macau but not to quite the extent that HK has been captured.
I know Robert Mitchum starred in "Macao" in the early fifties but I haven't seen it and can't confirm if there are many on-screen locations to be seen.
Ferry to Hong Kong may have but I have yet to view most of that film.

But who knows what may turn up.

Cheers
Phil

P.S many thanks for the Taipei link. I'm a big fan of that city (actually I was there in April) and of course the people :-)

Post a Comment