Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

The last part of the film sees our trusty but rusty ferry, the "Fa Tsan", finally succumb to its explosion, typhoon and pirate damage and sink beneath the waves of Hong Kong's famous harbour. Except, for the purpose of the film there was a little bit of 1950's camera trickery going on and it looks as though the footage of the sinking was actually superimposed onto a background of HK Island.

I guess you need to see it really, but the affect isn't too bad considering it was 1959, but the colours don't quite match between the foreground and background.

However, this did get me wondering because several months ago on a Facebook group page, someone who grew up in Hong Kong remembers seeing an old boat being towed into Kowloon Bay near Kai Tak Airport and being sunk for a film. Lots of suggestions were made, including The Sand Pebbles, but I'm not sure The Sand Pebbles filmed around that area (it was mainly in Port Shelter), so I wonder if this was the scene they were watching - the boat sinking in Kai Tak later being superimposed onto the footage from the harbour?

The ridge line in the background appears to be the western end of HK Island with Victoria Peak and High West in left and centre, but the angle suggests a location at the western end of the harbour (perhaps a camera sited on Stonecutter Island?) but there were obvious impracticalities to sinking a boat in the middle of the harbour.

Well, if anyone has any clues please feel free to share, in the meantime I'll update this post if I find out anything more.