Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Flight to Hong Kong - Rory Calhoun (1956) - 21 South Bay Road, Repulse Bay

Tony (Rory Calhoun) lives in a rather lush property, supposedly in Macau, but the exterior shots for this place were filmed at a large property located at 21 South Bay Road. The property has since been knocked down and replaced by "Villa Corniche", a development of several luxury townhouses, but the road up to the house doesn't appear to have changed that much since the film was shot nearly 70 years ago.

6 comments:

Rodney said...

Great find. What a pity that this house couldn't have stood a few more years, otherwise Jalal might have been able to film there before the wrecking ball hit.

Strangely, it looks like the house never had a gate. The plot next to this, albeit on Repulse Bay Road, was redeveloped a few years before. The most impressive home along that stretch was No. 90. Used to pass by it before it was turned into lowrises and those were rebuilt by Cheung Kong into eleven villas a few years ago.

Pip the Troll said...

Hey Rodney, thanks, yeah, this one took a while but the background helped. Pity there wasn't a wider view of the place - you can only guess what it looked like from the aerial images fromaround that time. Phil

Rodney said...

I assumed this was a house, but it seems to have been apartments, which might explain the lack of gate and its height compared to the neighbouring houses. Found an old directory that listed a prominent lad as living at this address on the G/F in the 1960s.

I think I have seen the apartments across from this property in a film or on TV. There are two more apartment blocks up the second narrow path that have a Chinese arch.

Pip the Troll said...

yeah,I think so, also at least two garages for cars in the basement. So at least 2 apartments. There are two other apartment blocks up the road, one built in 1951 (#27), that are only 3 storeys high, I wonder if they were built around the same time?

Rodney said...

Lakeside Apartments No. 23-25 directly across from this property would have been standing by the time of the film, as its occupation date was July 10 1950. There should be six units, but I only see the two garages.

No. 27 was almost exactly one year after Lakeside Apartments, its occupational was July 19 1951. No. 29-31 were added in 1960. I don't see any transactions at No. 27-31, albeit using the freebie transactions list at the estates agency websites. These might have been rental apartments for over sixty and seventy-years. Impressive.

Pip the Troll said...

I love these 1950 era apartments, they have so much style, very art-deco/bauhaus influenced I feel. It's a shame people just prefer boring square blocks these days. Still afew similar styled buildings around KowloonTsai.

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