Thursday, April 1, 2021

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Double Happiness Restaurant, Johnston Road

Don Benton (Richard Basehart) travels to Macau to investigate the mysterious passengers who were on board Jimmy's plane when they were shot down. Jimmy escaped but the American passengers, supposedly spies, were taken away by the Chinese. We are shown a brief clip of a ferry plying the waters between Hong Kong and Macau, however, the footage used is in fact a small clip from the previous year's Ferry to Hong Kong, complete with that big fake looking paddle steamer they cobbled together for that film.

So Benton heads to a casino where he knows a nefarious gangster, purportedly behind the kidnappings, is having a flutter, but the establishing shot for the casino is actually an image of a popular local restaurant that used to stand on the west corner of Tai Yuen Street and Johnston Road. It was called the "Double Happiness Restaurant" (雙喜大茶樓) and was around for a while before being replaced (circa 2001) by a residential building that took the same name (雙喜樓). I'm not sure how long before its demolition the restaurant was still operational. 

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