A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Various views from the Harbour

I must be losing my deductive powers because I have a bunch of stuff from A Queen's Ransom that is still eluding me, so I'll finish off for now with some of the (I assume) archive footage from the Queen's visit. The first view screengrabs show (if you squint) some helicopters doing a fly past along the harbour front. The big buildings at the top of the screen are Fairmont Gardens (on the left) and Realty Gardens (to its right) along Conduit Road. Film fans should remember that Realty Gardens was the site of the Mok Villa, made famous as the hospital in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, and also seen recently in Heisse Hafen Hongkong. 

You can still just about see the choppers in the shot below that shows the old waterfront view before the reclamation and extensive development that has since occurred on the north side of Gloucester Road. The very beginnings of that development can be see in the form of that tall white building which is the (still standing) Telecom House. You can still see the China Fleet Club with its large San Miguel sign on the roof (centre right) and the old Luk Kwok Hotel with its SANYO advert.

 

Finally looking in the opposite direction we can see the Queen's launch pulling out from Kowloon side with the Peninsula Hotel partially in view on the left, the Sheraton Hotel dead centre and the hill on the right hand side that is known as Blackhead Point and has the old Signal/Time ball tower on it. 

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - City Hall, Central

Here's a few shots of the area round City Hall. The first shot shows the camera looking west along Connaught Road with the City Hall building on the right hand side. On the extreme left is the lower floors of the Furama Hotel (now replaced with AIA Central building) followed by what was once the home of Cable and Wireless - Mercury House. I'm not sure what year it was demolished but it has since been replaced by the short-lived Ritz Carlton (seen here) and then again by the current building, CCB Tower. Next along is the recognisable form of the old Hong Kong Club building with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel just beyond on the other side of the square.

There is also some archive footage of the Queen visiting City Hall from the harbour side of the building (i.e. what would be off camera to the right in the top picture). 

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Tsuen Wan Sports Ground, Tsuen Wan

Like Bons Baisers de Hong Kong before it, we catch a glimpse of some of the festivities attended by the Queen at the old Tsuen Wan Sports Ground.

Although the sports ground has since been demolished - partly replaced by the area upon which Nina Tower sits - the industrial building to the left of the Gulf and Texaco oil containers still exists on the other side of the Ma Tau Pa Road. It's called the Gunzetal Ltd Building. In A Queen's Ransom, this is the location where the baddies are supposed to assassinate the Queen using a sniper rifle.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Golden Hill Road, Kowloon Reservoir

One of the key scenes of the film takes place along the dam wall that separates Kowloon Reservoir from Kowloon Byewash Reservoir. It's actually still possible to drive across the top of the dam wall even though it was built in 1910. Despite its name, it's actually in Shatin District which makes it part of the New Territories. 

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

I think most of the following screen grabs from the film are actually the snippets from the archive footage of the Royal visit. There are some nice views around the harbour including the Sea Palace, Tai Pak and a quick glimpse of what I think must be the Yue Lei Tai (second picture top left) floating restaurants.

I can't tell exactly from the film but it looks as though the Royal visitors were seated at the front of the Tai Pak for a water-based carnival. In the film the bad guys want to stick a bomb to the restaurant to blow her up.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - The Peninsula Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

Back in the 1970's the forecourt of the Peninsula Hotel had a larger ornamental fountain with some tacky lights. It looks as though the current one is slightly smaller in size, and I'm guessing it was reshaped when the forecourt was raised. I think it still has lights, but just less...colourful.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Razor Hill Road, Pik Uk Au

There's a twist in this film and it involves a Cambodian Princess (played by Angela Mao) and an accompanying shipment of gold. The Cambodian party set up camp on a small plateau overlooking a rather picturesque bay. It turns out the bay is Tseung Kwan O (Junk Bay) and the plateau has since been built on with various developments on either side of what is now Razor Hill Road.

This small plateau is in an area called Pik Uk Au - or Pik Uk Gap - and Razor Hill Road starts from Clearwater Bay Road just opposite the famous Pik Uk prison. This 1976 view is now blocked at the end of the road by a development called Rise Park Villa. Razor Hill (or at least a lower part of it) is on the left in the the bottom two pictures.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - 41 Cumberland Road, Kowloon Tong

Two houses are used in the film. One of them (yet to be located) is the hideaway where the criminals are holed up as they instigate various parts of their plan. The second house is the house where Tanny Tien Ni (last seen in this blog starring alongside Tamara Dobson in Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold) lives. This latter one is in fact 41 Cumberland Road aka Bruce Lee's old house in Kowloon Tong.

However, there is an odd bit of editing going on because in one scene where the criminals are all chilling out in their back garden and Yang Sze (aka Bolo Yeung) gets into a fight with Wang Yu. The fight starts off at the criminals house but then for some odd reason there is an edit and the fight continues but this time, and quite obviously for anyone familiar with Bruce Lee's old house, in the garden of 41 Cumberland Road. These are the screen grabs I've put up below - you can recognise the "Roman" wall frieze on the garden wall and the old Japanese bridge.

The fight then cuts back to the original house where the crew are staying. But Bruce's house pops up again as Charles Heung (yes, THAT Charles Heung) goes to visit Tanny under some some of protection detail. While he is there she gets a visit from the Wang Yu et al and Heung hides on the balcony. Again, all this was filmed on the first floor balcony of Bruce's house.

Believe it or not, those columns still exist but have been integrated into the house when it was concreted over into its current box shape. What a pity because it was a really nice looking house. Anyway, then we get a view down to the driveway from the balcony as well as a quick look inside the bedroom as Heung re-enters once the baddies have gone. You can just see the famous entrance gate through the gap between Heung and the screen door.

And finally, although I have no proof, I think this last shot shows the internal staircase. I guess this must have not been long after the place was bought by Yu Pang-lin.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Cross Harbour Tunnel, Kowloon

Several shots were filmed from the walkway over the Hong Chong Road which leads down into the original Cross Harbour Tunnel. The walkway connects Hung Hom Station with what is now a vastly more expanded HK Polytechnic University. The new Hung Hom Station was on the Queen's itinerary for her 1975 trip and she did a plaque unveiling there on May 5th, however he trains didn't start using the new station until much later in the year. By the time this film was made it was already in full operation.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Views inside and outside of the old airport in this film. The interior shots are from the film itself showing Lazenby (in this film he portrays an IRA assassin) arriving with his accomplice. The exterior shots are the archive footage from the Queen's visit (that's her in the lower picture).

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Central, Hong Kong

A Queen's Ransom is the last of the three films that George Lazenby was obligated to complete after he had signed up to Golden Harvest expecting to work with Bruce Lee back in 1973. It revolves around an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II during her famed 1975 trip to Hong Kong. You may remember that the French film, Bons Baisers de Hong Kong, also used this trip as the plot for the film and both that and A Queen's Ransom use archive footage from that trip to establish scenes and follow the plot as the police try to protect their Royal guests.

And so the introduction to this film uses quite a bit of archive footage shot around Central, showing some of the sights and sounds going on at the time. So here are a few screengrabs.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Cameron Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

The bar where Stoner goes to investigate the "happy pill" was the Hawaii Bar at 56 Cameron Road (location courtesy of Vanessa's bar card found here). The block it was in is called Long Kee Mansion and is still around, although the bar has long disappeared from the scene.