The Yellow Muffler - Betty Ting Pei (1972) - Former Fire Brigade Dock, Tsim Sha Tsui

The stone pier where Pai-hung (Betty TP) is supposed to stunt-double for an actress and leap into the water was filmed at the old L-shaped govt pier near the old Fire Station. This pier has been seen before on the blog when it doubled for Hankow (now known as Hankou) in The Sand Pebbles. The Yellow Muffler scene was filmed at the right-angled part of the pier that makes up the L-shape.

The north edge of the pier has been incorporated in to the West Kowloon Reclamation, and the lower part of the L-shape was removed/remodelled. I don't think this part of the waterfront is open to the public due to its proximity to the China ferry pier and also due to the Fire Brigade seemingly still using it for their fireboat, but this image on GoogleEarth shows you what remains of the old structure (the right angle L-shape section was removed and replaced by a less acutely angled section. Look carefully at the image I linked to and you can see the granite blocks (on the pier edge by the concrete hut) that formed part of the original structure. That also happens to be where the right angled section of the pier started. There's a small semi-circle of bricks by there that marks where the turn was.

The Yellow Muffler - Betty Ting Pei (1972) - Ocean Terminal

This is where the girls see off (and welcome back) their father and youngest sister as the latter make their way to Taiwan by ship. It's been a while since I visited this place but I believe the area where the filming took place still looks more or less the same.

The Yellow Muffler - Betty Ting Pei (1972) - Shaws Movietown, Clearwater Bay

Continuing my wholesale appropriation of all the Shaw movies being posted to Youtube by Celestial Pictures (reminder), the next one I am looking at is The Yellow Muffler starring Betty Ting Pei. Proof, if you ever needed it, that she really wasn't a very good actress at all and just appears to have got through her career by pouting and fluttering her eyelashes.

The story revolves around three sisters who want to break into showbusiness but are held back by their ageing father who also happens to have his own magic show at a nightclub. He gets sacked (basically because he's a bit crap) and decides to go to Taiwan for work and expects his daughters to go with him, but they refuse and eventually only the youngest goes with him. The other two try to make a break on their own but bomb and are eventually offered help to get into the movie business. The film was shot in 1971 and released in January 1972. It does use a couple of outdoor locations but for many scenes it's quite obviously somewhere inside the Movietown complex.

As well as filling in for other locations, Movietown also features itself because of the girls trying to break into the movie industry, but in the film it has become "Golden Crown Studios". See below for some not so convincing matte glass paintwork effects.

Anyway, as with my old post for The Lady Hermit, I've tried to identify a few of the places we see with where they were located within the studio lot (I will try and do this with the old GH studio as well at some point). So it's time to break out my crayons again. The base image I am using is a b&w aerial image from 1982 courtesy of HKMaps.hk. Click on the image for a closer view.

Click to zoom in

The first spot is just after the girls leave the cinema and are walking home. This was shot at point A. I'm not sure what the building was though.

The next image is the glass painting effect I referred to earlier. It shows the real Movietown in the bottom part of the image (the gate and driveway and Shaw House) but for a weird reason has covered up the various warehouses on the hill with fake ones. The close ups were obviously filmed at the main gate (point B).

This building below is located at Point C on the main aerial image. If anyone knows what it was used for please feel free to comment. Those circular vents were quite distinctive and have cropped up in many Shaw films over the years.

Next up is this shot taken from the north side of the plot (point D). Note the previously mentioned building with the circular vents can be seen centre right, just behind Irene Chen's head.

The final bit of Movietown is when the father returns and is given a tour of the studios. The first image shows the covered walkway next to building the building at point E. The group then turn left (marked by the red arrow) and walk alongside the circular vent building at point F. 

Anyway, that's all I could see for now. If anything else pops up I'll be sure to add it.