Saturday, January 4, 2025

Dallas - Victoria Principal (1985) - The Regent Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

I guess I should be calling this place "The Regent" again following its recent renaming back to the name it had prior to being called the "Intercontinental Hong Kong". The first glimpse we have of it is in Shattered Dreams as Sue Ellen and Pam sit down for drinks and chat to Mr Chen. A fellow Texan then pops up to say hello but is rebuffed by the women.

Friday, January 3, 2025

Dallas - Victoria Principal (1985) - Victoria Harbour

This is the boat deck scene I was referring to in the last post. The Ewings meet with Edward Chan (Philip Chen) again who is tasked with introducing Pam to the patient she believes is Mark Graison, but who has checked into Mr Chan's clinic with the name of "Mr Swanson".

In the background you can see the now demolished Hutchison House and Furama Hotel, as well as the almost-complete HSBC building. In the far distance on the ridge line you can also see the old, curved Peak Tower in Victoria Gap.

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Dallas - Victoria Principal (1985) - View from the Peak

The next shot is an establishing shot of the harbour from The Peak as the camera pans across from right to left and then zooms in on one of the boats in the harbour - this sets up the next scene which looks to have been filmed on the deck of a boat. Notice the cranes still on top of the fugly HSBC HQ (top image left hand side) which was finally completed in November of 1985.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Dallas - Victoria Principal (1985) - Kai Tak Airport

Happy New Year to everyone that reads my mumblings. Welcome to 2025 and to kickstart the year I thought I would delve back into my 70s/80s childhood and cover one of the most popular shows at the time. I did watch Dallas when I was growing up, at least to a point, courtesy of my parents' TV habits. I certainly remember the famous "Who Shot JR?" mystery (apparently in 1980. Time flies!) and Terry Wogan referring to Lucy Ewing (Charlene Tilton) as the "poisoned dwarf", but other than that my memories of this show are now a bit dim.

It turns out that during Season 8 (shown in 1985) there were several episodes that included a sub-plot about Pamela Ewing (Victoria Principal) and Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) flying to Hong Kong so that Pam could seek out her missing, presumed dead, boyfriend, Mark Graison.

I initially believed it was a single episode, but it turns out that the Hong Kong sequences, which also feature a rather young looking Philip Chen as their HK-contact, was spread out over three episodes: Shattered Dreams (21), Dead Ends (22) and Trial and Error (23).

The first view of Hong Kong appears to be midway through Shattered Dreams as we see a plane making its landing at Kai Tak and the two Ewing women disembarking onto the apron to board a HATS transfer bus. I guess this was in the days before private planes (for oil millionaires) became a thing.


Philip Chen in da house