Lord Jim - Peter O'Toole (1965) - Former Fire Brigade Dock, Tsim Sha Tsui

Following on from the revelation regarding the Hankow Bund seen in The Sand Pebbles, an elusive location from Lord Jim has finally been revealed to me. This is the location of the Seaman's Home and Hospital where our main protagonist, Jim, is convalescing just before he accepts a position on the apparently doomed ship that he later abandons.

The first building can be seen below. It's the same building that can be seen on the left of this behind-the-scenes shot of The Sand Pebbles (although you can't see it on screen in that film). The grey building on the right being the same godown building that had "Hankow Godown" written on it for The Sand Pebbles. Anyway, the top two images below are of that white building. The third image appears to be the view from the same building looking out towards the waterfront. I suspect the trees and other greenery were put there simply for the benefit of the film seeing as this was essentially a working Govt dockyard.

The next images include the same two colonnaded buildings that can be seen on The Sand Pebbles. In the first two images it's the red brick building that can be seen on the far right of the screen shots I included in my earlier post (but here is one of those images). Again, I have no idea what it used to be and all trace of it has now gone.

In the final shot from the pier, we catch a glimpse of the final white building. Similarly style with lower floor colonnades, this one has thinner pillars on the upper floor with rattan blinds hanging in the openings.

Again, I have no idea what any of these buildings were, but given that this was a piece of Govt land that included a Naval yard and a torpedo depot then it's possible they were originally military in nature. If anyone can shed any light on them please feel free to comment.

According to this Gwulo image, it looks as though they had already been demolished by the late 1970's.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Former Fire Brigade Dock, Tsim Sha Tsui

One of the benefits about going back over films is that usually I find something that wasn't previously known or appreciated. The case in point is this extra Hong Kong location for The Sand Pebbles.

Looking at an old press release online (available via this link) there is an old mention of the Kowloon "Fire Brigade Dock" being used as the stand-in for the Hankow Bund. I honestly had no idea of where this might be but looked at an old 1965 map for references. The map wasn't that specific but did show all the Govt piers and it wasn't long before the penny dropped and I realised it was the dock that used to be in front of what is now the main Tsim Sha Tsui Fire Station on Canton Road.

The clincher was this BTS photo over on Don Whistance's blog (update: blog link now dead but he was the guy who contacted me about all this stuff a few months back). Don has mistakenly mixed it in with the Tamsui pictures (one of several errors) but it quite clearly shows a modern building at the back which turns out to be a school... two schools in fact: the Lai Chack Middle School and the Canton Road Govt Primary School.

It looks as though the old Govt site had quite a few old colonial style colonnaded buildings on it which have since been knocked down and replaced by not only the current version of the fire station but also the adjoining China Hong Kong City building.

Anyway, comparing the BTS photo and current maps, it looks as though the building with "Hankow Godown" written on it was about where Tower 3 of the China Ferry terminal now stands. There's still some semblance of a pier here at the moment but I suspect it is off limits until the High Speed Rail terminal has been completed. In the meantime, here are the film grabs for that location.

This bit of extra identification has also now allowed me to place some other shots from Lord Jim that I was scratching my head about at the time. So a new Lord Jim post will be up in a few days as well.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Lin Family Mansion, Banqiao, Taipei

In the last The Sand Pebbles Taiwan post we visit the Lin Family Mansion in Banqiao. This is location of the elephant statue that McQueen and a local boy are throwing stones onto for good luck. I'm still not sure if the elephant was a prop or actually part of the garden, but suffice to say it hasn't survived the years so perhaps it was just a prop after all. The garden itself and the traditional Chinese style house at the other end are still very much intact though and I went there a couple of weeks ago.

Seeing some of the behind-the-scenes pictures online, it's astonishing to think that at the time of filming the surrounding area was basically just open fields (with the exception of a nearby Catholic Church), but when I visited I can tell you the whole place is as bustling as any other part of the city with the development to match.

Getting here is straightforward enough, I just caught the MRT to Fuzhong on the blue Bannan Line and walked for about 10 minutes. The garden is NT$80 to enter and consists of two parts: a large Chinese style garden with various traditional buildings and pavilions, bridges, ponds etc and the second part is the privately owned Lin family mansion and the open garden that extends to its front (i.e. the filming location).

Here lies the problem for budding film fans. In order to get into the mansion side you need to grab a (free) ticket for the next available tour (tour of the Lin mansion that is, not the tour of the Chinese garden). The tour is in Chinese only and you will not get in without a ticket because the entrance is small (through a door in the wall) and you are stopped for your ticket as you go in i.e. no way to sneak in.

The second problem is that the tour is only of the mansion and not the surrounding grounds and each group is chaperoned by at least 3 assistants who make it their mission to stop you from straying away from the tour path. So, with that in mind I can only say that I was very close to the filming spot by about 20 metres, but was forbidden from going any closer. I don't know why that section is off limits.

In the picture above, the filming spot is beyond the "minder" just in front of the balustrade wall. It's a large courtyard area with an ornamental pond on the other side of the wall. This was the closest I could get, sadly. The elephant statue was placed slap bang centre screen at the end of the path.

Two minders to ensure no one wandered to the back.

Actually, in terms of getting closer to the location, walking around the outside of the garden is almost as good as going inside and I took these following photos from the public pavement by the main road. The location is just the other side of the wall.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Longshan Temple, Taipei

One of the locations featured on the day out with McQueen and Bergen was the famous Longshan Temple. It's basically the Taipei equivalent of Wong Tai Sin Temple (i.e. quite touristy). The temple complex is quite large with the main temple building occupying the centre of the site, however, the filming was done behind the main building in the rear courtyard.

Sadly, I couldn't get the shot I wanted because of a large metal roof structure that has been erected to protect worshippers from the harsh Taiwanese sun. As a result, the current view is obscured - which is a shame because the roof, like most Taiwanese temples, is quite colourful and ornate and certainly a bit more spectacular than can be seen back in 1966.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Dihua Street, Taipei

Not too far away from the former Penglai Pavilion site is Dihua Street. This is the location used to march the sailors back to the ship as they are being harangued and bombarded with all sorts of nasty stuff. In general, most of modern Taipei only really appeared after the 1960s and lacs the look needed for 1920's Changsha. Dihua Street is one of those older streets that has been around for much longer and has been able to maintain much of its antique look and feel. There are the odd clumps of modern development (especially in the southern section of the road) but many old (and stylish) buildings are still extent in the middle and northern sections and it looks as though that was where filming took place.

There are so many old buildings along here it boggles the mind, but if you walk far enough north you'll find some red brick ones that are similar to the ones seen on screen. What makes identification a bit more difficult is that these buildings have had some excellent renovations done, making them look almost new, and I think it might be complicated by the fact that there are also a few newer additions that have been built in a style sympathetic to the area. So some look old but aren't simply because of their architecture. It's very hard to determine.

 
 However, there is one spot that I know was featured and it is in the picture immediately above. I've cropped and highlighted the name on the building and you will see that it is the same one seen in one of the screen grabs above. I've re posted below.

Note that in the film the row of buildings continues to the right, but today the building marks the end of the terrace and a new block of flats has been built where the old buildings once were. So it looks like not everything was saved.

Actually, if you are eagle-eyed enough you can see this building in the screen shot below, courtesy of the two signs hanging outside the windows.You can see them directly above the position of the sailors in the top centre of the image. Unfortunately then, it looks like all the buildings to the right were demolished to make way for new development. You will see what I mean if you click on the GoogleEarth link here. In that modern link you will see the gap on the right where the old houses were demolished and a new building has been built set back from the roadside.

Anyway, at least there is at least one building that helps us place the scene properly.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Penglai Pavilion, Taipei

The American Consulate in Changsha was portrayed by a rather elegant looking building in Taipei called Penglai Pavilion. Sadly, it has been completely redeveloped - which is a big shame considering there are qite a few historicaol buildings in the area that have survived. Especially nearby on DiHua Street which I'll visit in the next post.

This is the scene when the Nationalist Army (led by Richard Loo) take over the Consulate and humiliate the American sailors by frogmarching them back to their ship through a gauntlet of angry Chinese who want to kick the foreigners out.

Holman later returns there to inquire about whether there is anyone in the building able to help Frenchie marry his Chinese girlfriend.

The building was built in the mid-20's and was originally a high-class restaurant/hotel. It shut down operations in 1955 and was leased to the US Govt as a club and dormitory for the military for a couple of years. In 1957 it was bought by a famous doctor (Xu Yuxing) and turned into a surgical hospital.

I can't find when it was closed but it was subsequently demolished and redeveloped and a small commercial premises (containing a cheap hotel) now stands on the site. The site, at 163 West Nanjing Road can be seen in my picture below with the glass front. It takes a fare amount of imagination to try and see that spot as the front garden of the old building.

This location is quite close (about 100 metres away) to Di Hua Street which was the real street the sailors had to walk down whilst being pelted with food by the local population.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Zhuzihu, Yangmingshan Country Park, Taipei

My sole contribution to the Taiwanese The Sand Pebbles filming locations hunt was this bit of rural spotting based on what turned out to be a single rice paddy terrace wall.

This location was used briefly in the film as the sailors make their way to the missionaries (including Candice Bergen) who have made their base in an old temple building out in the middle of nowhere. The top image is the first time we see this place as they make their way through the rice paddies to what looks like a distant temple.

In reality, the hill that the temple is on in that shot is only a few hundred metres away and, of course, the building is superimposed. This location is a place called Zhuzihu and is situated in a valley slap bang in the middle of the Yangmingshan Country Park. It took a while for me to find, but I did have the benefit of knowing that filming was done 'somewhere' in Yangmingshan. In the end it was the very distinct rice terracing that finally revealed the exact location and I was able to head out there a couple of weeks ago and get some modern day comparison snaps.

It's a bit difficult to see on my picture but the rice paddy sides are still evident even after all these years (it's much easier to see on Google Streetview which was obviously captured some time ago) so I have taken the liberty of using my blunt crayons and marking them below to make it clearer.

Incidentally, the hill where the temple is supposed to be is actually right next to the bus stop (I caught the S9 minibus from outside Beitou station and rode it all the way to the last stop at Fungjiakou). It takes about 10 minutes following a pathway around the paddies to get to this spot.

Anyway, later on the same scene we see the sailors walking up a set of steps to what is supposed to be the front door of the temple. This is the image below. However, if you look closely you can see the same distinctive rice paddies behind the actors, so it's obvious that this shot was made from slightly higher up than the first one.

I did go up the hill (there is a nicely landscaped path - the Bailaka Highway Pedestrian Trail - that leads you up to the road) and looked for a reasonable match to the angle on the hills and found one on a stone bridge that runs over a stream. You can see my picture taken from that location below.

The vegetation is now too overgrown to see back down to the paddy fields but I think the angles on the mountain opposite (it's called Datunshan 大屯山) are about as close as you can get. So, I believe the steps (obviously a prop) were constructed using the bridge top as an anchor. Of course the real temple set was in fact constructed over in Malibu Creek State Park (at this exact location near Las Virgenes Creek).