Central Police Station - Now and Then

Despite the former Central Police Station compound being open for several years now (looks like it was open as far back a 2018) I have only just made the effort to go there this week. I have yet to have a decent wander, but I did go to the Happy Valley museum in the basement of the Police HQ block. "Why is there an historical exhibition for Happy Valley in the Central Police Station compound?" I hear you ask? It's because the renovation of the compound was funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club so they wanted to make it a bit about themselves as well.

I will go back at some point and get some better pictures and explore a bit more, but in the meantime, here are a couple of shots to compare to some screen grabs taken from Rod Taylor's entertaining 1960s show "Hong Kong", for which I did an episode-by-episode location breakdown about five years ago. Incidentally, for those not wanting to go to the Internet Archive, I am also uploading all episodes to my Youtube channel.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Hong Kong Island view

One of the most frequently occurring establishing shots for this series is a nighttime view across the harbour towards the business centre of Hong Kong Island with Victoria Peak in the background. In fact the following shot was used in the first official episode Clear for Action but I have left it out all the way until episode 20, The Hunted, simply because this episode has no other proper Hong Kong locations, it was almost 99.99% shot on studio sets. As well as Clear for Action, this shot can also be seen in The Turncoat (Ep: 9), The Dragon Cup (Ep: 12), Murder by Proxy (Ep: 22) and Love Honor and Perish (Ep: 24)

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Central Police Station, Central

One of the main locations for the on-screen dialogue between Evans and the Police Chief, throughout this whole series, occurs on the police station studio set. However, the establishing shots for these scenes were filmed at the real life Central Police Station on Hollywood Road, with Taylor driving his signature white sports car up the main entrance and then around the central courtyard/carpark area.

This place is now open to the public and you can rad more about it here.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Garden Road, Central

Some nice old footage of Rod Taylor driving up Garden Road and then turning onto Magazine Gap Road just past the junction with Robinson Road. Obviously this is way before the flyover was built and the view was much more open.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - The Sea Palace, Aberdeen Harbour

Another of the establishing shots at the beginning of the episode. This one shows the now defunct Sea Palace floating restaurant that used to be next to the Tai Pak in Aberdeen Harbour. In fact I believe that is the Tai Pak on the left of the screen. This series was filmed in 1960, so what you can see is the original Tai Pak restaurant that was later (around 1962) moved to Castle Peak Bay.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Barker Road Peak Tram Stop, The Peak

Another of the series' establishing shots was filmed inside the Barker Road Peak Tram Stop. It's a more substantial stop than most on the line and therefore has been the one that has been filmed the most - so far it has been seen in about 6 movies included on this blog.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - 17 Magazine Gap Road, Mid-levels

In the show, Taylor's character, Glenn Evans, lives in a rather swish modern low rise apartment block. In several of the episodes a well used shot of the place is used for establishment purposes and , after a bit of digging around, it turns out that the apartment block in question was the precursor to the current Magazine Heights (which incidentally, I covered not that long ago for Black Cobra Woman).

According to Gwulo.com, this building was constructed at 17 Magazine Gap Road in 1950 and was demolished in circa 1967 when it made way for the current Magazine Heights development. You can see a distant view of it (marked as 9a) here.

There is some other footage of this place, or at least its podium, but you'll have to wait until episode 6 for that.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Kowloon KCR Terminus, Kowloon

Part of the plot of Clear for Action involves Evans sending his faithful butler over the border on a spying trip. He dispatches him from the Kowloon terminus on the KCR train being pulled by engine #54.

Taylor at the old KCR Terminus

For the train fans who read this site, then please check out Marcus Wong's always interesting blog. I've linked to it before but this link seems to be extra poignant as I believe Marcus has an image of the very same engine seen below in its later purple livery. It's nice to know these things are still going strong nearly 60 years later. Well, at least some of them.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - View over Central, Hong Kong

Well, the series was commissioned by 20th Century Fox television and got underway proper with real on location filming and a minor switch up in the regular cast - the Chief Inspector of Police role was handed to Lloyd Bochner whereas in the pilot it was played by Alex Davion. This is worth noting because as I mentioned in a previous post, the pilot was rehashed into a full length episode and Davion's scenes from the pilot were crowbarred back into plot. This first episode was called Clear for Action and had Frances Nuyen as a co-star - fresh from her breakdown that led to her removal from The World of Suzie Wong made earlier in the year.

Anyway, I also mentioned the mixed up words for the opening credits were also fixed and so here they are with a slightly different view across the harbour. It starts with the various banks, and moves eastwards taking in HMS Tamar before finishing with the west wing of the old Bowen Road Military Hospital (now the Carmel School).

Jack Kruschen played the character of Tully, a bar owner based on the character from Soldier of Fortune called Tweedie who, in turn, is thought originally to have been based on the real life character Edward Gingle. Coincidentally (or not), Kruschen also had a role in Soldier of Fortune. - he played the creep Austin Stoker who meets Hayward's character on board the ship as they arrive in Hong Kong.