The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Keelung Harbour, Taiwan

In the first of my Taiwan based posts for The Sand Pebbles we are, fittingly, starting off where the film also begins. It's Keelung, the port town where McQueen's character, Jake Holman, first boards the San Pablo as the new engineer.

Most of the films scenes were filmed at the port side next to Gangxi Street, in front of the old train station. It looks more like a plaza on screen but I have no idea if this was done deliberately for the film. Either way, it is currently a fairly busy roundabout. The area where the small boat is docked in the third picture down is now a building that contains a Starbucks and Burger King. Such is life.

This last picture above shows the view looking over to what is now the Yangming Oceanic Culture and Art Museum (far left of picture) and the large building centre and right is the Keelung Customs Office. You can see them as they are now in the next picture, taken a couple of weeks ago. The Customs office is the rather grand structure centre right. It has been extended up and out a bit since the film but is still in really good shape. The museum is the smaller building behind the blue buses - you can just see its lower arches on film and in the close up view I've posted below.

Keelung Customs Office

Yangming Oceanic Culture and Art Museum

The second location in Keelung seen on film is as Holman speaks to an officer to find out where he is supposed to go. In the background is the 林開郡洋樓. It is a well know local building whose name translates into something like Lin Kai County Building. It's a really beautiful building but just sits there getting more decrepit by the year. I hope there are some plans to preserve it in some way.

As you can see the main change is that is now has a flyover directly in front of it! In the film we are led to believe it's on the same side as the just discussed customs office but it's actually at the other end of the harbour front.