Our next movie is
Flight to Hong Kong, made at the tail-end of 1955 and released in 1956. It gets a mention in the 1955 Hong Kong Report saying it was one of 3 overseas productions to film in the colony that year (the other two being
Soldier of Fortune - which was actually shot at the tail end of 1954 - and
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing). Apparently, Sabre Productions (the production company of the director Joseph M. Newman) arrived in Hong Kong in December to shoot on location. What a shame then that the only copy I can find is a black and white VHS transfer (that was originally recorded off the Turner Classic Movie channel) that has rather poor picture quality.
Anyway, the movie starts off as a sort of docudrama as we are given a voice over about the state of modern international crime. The voice over is supposedly provided by a member of the Hong Kong Police Force and describes how the colony's force is at the forefront of combating international crime. At the same time we get some nice proper shots of Caine House as it used to look back in 1955.
Caine House is still around of course, despite the HQ site being redeveloped. Anyway, here is an interesting comparison from thirty years later courtesy of
China Rose.
2 comments:
Another film from 1955 is The Night My Number Came Up. Some nice shots of old Kai Tak
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/2178046/rare-footage-kai-tak-airport-features-michael
thanks anon, I had just been watching that on twitter. What a coincidence. here's another coincidence...Adam Nebbs as well as writing the excellent "Great Fire of Hong Kong" was also the editor for the Portwatch magazine when I wrote a two piece article about films made in Aberdeen Harbour (http://hongkongandmacaustuff.blogspot.com/2017/01/an-article-or-two-for-portwatch-magazine.html).
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