Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Western Police Station, Sai Ying Pun

On his arrival back in Hong Kong, Jimmy is arrested by the local police on a made up charge, which Benton later finds out was to take him into protective custody. The Police Station he is being held out is supposedly Western Police Station on Des Voeux Road West at the bottom of Western Street. Of course, only the outside is seen on film. Other than a brief glimpse in Double Impact, I don't think this place has been seen in a foreign movie before.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Sheung Wan Waterfront - Fireboat Alexander Grantham

I can't figure out the exact location of this one, but the interesting feature of the first image is the fact that just there in the background is the Fireboat Alexander Grantham, which was decommissioned in 2002 and now serves as a permanently grounded exhibition in Quarry Bay Park. I suspect this was somewhere close to the Harbour Office between Rumsey and Wing Wo Streets, but I am not sure if that area was a permanent berth for the boat or just a temporary one for fueling/loading etc. Anyway, if you look centre left off the end of the pier, you can see a ferry in the distance, so I suspect that is the location of the Central Vehicular Ferry Pier. If anyone knows a more accurate location, then please feel free to comment.

Anyway, this scene is when Don Benton (Basehart) sneaks out of Hong Kong and up the Pearl River Delta in order to rescue his downed pilot adopted brother, Jimmy (Burt Kwouk).

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - 28 Tai Hang Road, Tai Hang

In the film, Richard Basehart's character is friends with a family who supposedly save him when he was shot down during the war, and so he has become and adopted "big brother". The family seems to be well to do and live in a rather large property somewhere. The establishing shot for their home is a rather grand looking place with some art deco styling and two Chinese characters embedded into the roof. This one took a while to locate because these screenshots were the only clue I had and thankfully I recognised Grandview Mansions on the hilltop in the background.

Anyway, it runs out that this property was located at #28 Tai Hang Road. The site is now occupied by a mid-60s era mid rise residential block called "Kan Oke House". As I sometimes do when I find something interesting on film, I posted the house on Gwulo.com and a local historian filled in the background details (and at the same time was obviously in awe of my location detective skills).

So, the house was built by a local merchant called Kwok Hin Wang in 1928 and the two characters in the roof, that you can't really make out in these screencaps (I believe there is a HD bluray release though, so perhaps that would be clearer) are 勤屋. In Cantonese this is pronounced as "kan uk" which basically translates to industrious/hardworking house. So the current building name, Kan Oke, is (and this happens a lot in Hong Kong) a name homage to the former occupant of the site.

Looking at the aerial images of the area, there are none available between 1960 and 1962, and by the time 1963 comes around the house had already been demolished and the plot was sitting empty. It was still empty in 1964 and by 1966 Kan Oke House had been built.

The first image obviously shows the view looking down Tai Hang Road. I probably shouldn't need to mention that the area looks vastly different today.

Or how about this for a nicely cleaned up stitched version.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - View from the Peak

Another view from the Peak for this film, except this time we are looking west towards Central. This view reminded me slightly of the opening scenes for Enter the Dragon which, if you remember, were reused for Robert Clouse's follow up movie, Golden Needles. You can view that old post here.

This view from Visa to Canton though looks to be on a higher elevation and slightly south which makes me think it was most likely shot from Mount Cameron, either from Cameron Mansions or #30 Magazine Gap Road.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Central Fire Station, Connaught Road

For the third and final view from this same camera position, the camera has now rotated once again to the right and is now looking east along Connaught Road Central. In the distance on the left, at the end of block, is the old G.P.O. The closer building, centre frame on the opposite side of the road, is the old Central Fire Station. This was knocked down in 1982 to make way for the current Hang Seng HQ building.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Central Vehicular Ferry Pier, Connaught Road

Following on from the previous post, the camera is turned to the right and we can see the old Central Vehicular Ferry Pier. Built at the end of a triangular causeway, this was the Hong Kong end of the route linked to the vehicular ferry pier at the end of Jordan Road in Kwun Chung.

In the later part of the 60s, the area of harbour to the left of the pier was reclaimed and at some point modifications were made to cater for the newly introduced double-decked ferries, including the construction of a single lane ramp that allowed cars to enter/exit from the top deck.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Connaught Road Central

The next few posts show the same stretch of Connaught Road Central but all viewed from various angles. I've broken them down into three separate posts, one for each angle. The camera location is essentially on the waterside pavement, close to Central Vehicular Ferry Pier (as you'll see in the next post) and in terms of today's location, my best guess would be somewhere around here (it's a GoogleEarth Chrome link).

This first angle shows the view looking west along Connaught Road with the Macau<>HK Ferry pier coming into view as the camera pans to the right. Note the ship at berth, it's the Tai Loy (before it was renamed Chung Shan). Gwulo.com has some amazing images of this ferry being constructed here.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - View from the Peak

Unbelievably, to me at least, I have stumbled upon yet another 60's era film that, although shot at Bray studios in Windsor, used proper location footage shot in Hong Kong for its various establishing shots. The film is Visa to Canton (a.k.a Passport to China) and is a Hammer Film production directed by Michael Carreras (who also directed another Hammer Hong Kong film: Shatter). According to various Hammer histories, the film was shot as a pilot for an intended US TV series followup that never happened. Perhaps the lukewarm reception of Hong Kong, shot the same year, turned the US execs off?

The plot is simple enough. Richard Basehart plays Don Benton, a former US pilot who has set up in Hong Kong after the war to run a travel agency. His adoptive family, headed by Mrs Mao (Athene Saylor in, sadly, 'yellowface'), ask him to help rescue their Kuomintang pilot son Jimmy (Burt Kwouk), who has been shot down in Mainland China.

Principal photography was done in June 1960 at Bray, but I can't find any mention of when or who shot the Hong Kong footage. The film was given a December release in the UK that year and, perhaps due to its reception, was released in cheaper black and white only format in the US a few months later.

It has some nice colour imagery of Hong Kong but starts with this nice panning shot looking over Wanchai from the Peak.