Hong Kong Faces 'A Many Splendored Thing'
by John Campbell
(New York Times, April 3, 1955)
(The writer was a member of the location company which is now back in Hollywood)
With the forbidding – and forbidden – mountains of Red China at their backs, cloud banks threatening and sometimes charging from the sea, William Holden, Jennifer Jones and a troupe of thirty other Hollywood actors and technicians recorded her on film the rising emotional temperatures of two lovers separated by custom and conscience. The story they enacted in its indigenous background is “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing,” a somewhat autobiographical novel written by Han Suyin, a Eurasian woman physician, now living in Malaya, but well remembered here.
John Patrick, who found an Oriental setting to his liking in “The Teahouse of the August Moon,” wrote the screen play for the Twentieth Century Fox production without departing from the main ingredients of the novel. The British war correspondent, married but estranged from his wife, was changed to an American when Mr. Holden was cast in the picture, bu this does not ameliorate the character’s problem when he falls in love with a dedicated Eurasian, portrayed by Miss Jones. A wig of long, black hair covering her own Italian cut and subtle lines and shadows around the eyes were Miss Jones’ sole concession to the Orient in her appearance. This is considered permissible in Hong Kong, where it is said Eurasian features run the full range from Orient to Occident.
The presence here of the two stars is completely voluntary. When trouble begins to develop around Formosa, Producer Buddy Adler, well aware that he could not order his stars into an area of potential danger, invited them to Hong Kong in the interests of artistic integrity. Miss Jones needed no other argument and for Holden, who loves to travel and has flown 80,000 miles in the last year, the argument was superfluous.
Director Henry King had to return to Hollywood from Hong Kong to prepare for the interior scenes that will be made there. After blocking out a schedule for eighteen days of shooting in the Crown Colony, he left the direction in the hands of Otto Lang, who has been all over the world on such assignments since the advent of Cinemascope.
On Aberdeen Bay
A major part of the shooting here was done in the exotic floating village in Aberdeen Bay, named in memory of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen. An estimated 10,000 persons live in the village. All population figures in the Crown Colony are estimates because of the violent fluctuations brought about by changing conditions in China. The populace, which sustains itself principally by fishing but also transports cargo, lives on the junks and sampans in which it works.
The Hollywood invaders created a sensation in Aberdeen. Between its floating and shoreline population, this is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and, while impoverished, hardly anyone seemed to be too busy to stop his work and watch what was going on. Relatively few had seen motion pictures and fewer still understood the making of them. This lack of communion with Hollywood was strikingly demonstrated by the fact that only once were Mr. Holden and Miss Jones asked for autographs, whereas at their quarters in the historic Peninsula Hotel they lived under constant siege by insistent hordes armed with autograph books. The stars sometimes required police assistance to get in and out of their rooms.
Inquisitive
The presence of Sub-Inspector Jack Martin, police officer in charge of the district, and a couple of Chinese constables, was a tangible corroboration of Martin’s apt observations on Chinese curiosity. Originally, Mr. Lang planned to conceal his camera in a delivery van parked on the quay. Mr. Holden then was to drive up with Miss Jones, park, and embark upon a sampan propelled by two pretty, if muscular, girls. The director hoped to gain spontaneity in the shot and also to avoid having passers-by stare into the camera, this last being the most common difficulty in work outside the studio. However, the hope was in vain. Cameraman Charles Clarke had to expose his lens briefly for focus; one Chinese eye caught the movement and, instantly, the “hidden camera” was the most interesting object in the vicinity. Inspector Martin was called and the area was cleared except for extra players hired on the spot and instructed not to look at the camera.
However, Mr. Lang soon experienced a typically Oriental contradiction. To film a sequence showing the stars being rowed from the shore, he partially hid the camera on the lower deck of a floating restaurant with the intent of catching them moving through the normally colorful flow of harbor traffic. This included toddlers, barely able to stand, propelling their sampans; the big junks tacking in perilously close quarters, and the various venders sculling and crying their wares.
“CinemaScope was made for this!” Mr. Lang exclaimed.
Shocked Scullers
All was proceeding smoothly when a woman sculled her scampan, with two small children aboard, within a few yards of the camera. She glanced up and hurriedly embraced both children with one arm, shielding them and herself with her back, the while sculling furiously and screaming what could only have been a stream of imprecations. Mr. Lang guessed at the general import of the incident and withdrew the camera until things had quieted down a bit, and then brought it out into full view. After a while, the unattended camera lost some of its glamour and, at a time when the attention of most of the harbor was diverted by a loud quarrel between the skippers of two junks, Mr. Lang made his shot.
Later, he learned that among the fisherfolk are members of the Haka clan, which, in one of the antique dynasties, was driven from its lands to find refuge in the south of China. Its members believe that the camera robs human beings of their souls. It was to this group that the woman so frightened undoubtedly had belonged.
This quaint superstition was, of course, especially interesting and amusing to the Hollywood visitors and provoked much comment.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Holden observed dryly. “Sometimes after we get back to Hollywood, we’ll look around and then we’ll remember these fishermen and what they believe. “Lord!” we’ll say to ourselves, “they were right!”
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by John Campbell
(New York Times, April 3, 1955)
(The writer was a member of the location company which is now back in Hollywood)
With the forbidding – and forbidden – mountains of Red China at their backs, cloud banks threatening and sometimes charging from the sea, William Holden, Jennifer Jones and a troupe of thirty other Hollywood actors and technicians recorded her on film the rising emotional temperatures of two lovers separated by custom and conscience. The story they enacted in its indigenous background is “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing,” a somewhat autobiographical novel written by Han Suyin, a Eurasian woman physician, now living in Malaya, but well remembered here.
John Patrick, who found an Oriental setting to his liking in “The Teahouse of the August Moon,” wrote the screen play for the Twentieth Century Fox production without departing from the main ingredients of the novel. The British war correspondent, married but estranged from his wife, was changed to an American when Mr. Holden was cast in the picture, bu this does not ameliorate the character’s problem when he falls in love with a dedicated Eurasian, portrayed by Miss Jones. A wig of long, black hair covering her own Italian cut and subtle lines and shadows around the eyes were Miss Jones’ sole concession to the Orient in her appearance. This is considered permissible in Hong Kong, where it is said Eurasian features run the full range from Orient to Occident.
The presence here of the two stars is completely voluntary. When trouble begins to develop around Formosa, Producer Buddy Adler, well aware that he could not order his stars into an area of potential danger, invited them to Hong Kong in the interests of artistic integrity. Miss Jones needed no other argument and for Holden, who loves to travel and has flown 80,000 miles in the last year, the argument was superfluous.
Director Henry King had to return to Hollywood from Hong Kong to prepare for the interior scenes that will be made there. After blocking out a schedule for eighteen days of shooting in the Crown Colony, he left the direction in the hands of Otto Lang, who has been all over the world on such assignments since the advent of Cinemascope.
On Aberdeen Bay
A major part of the shooting here was done in the exotic floating village in Aberdeen Bay, named in memory of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen. An estimated 10,000 persons live in the village. All population figures in the Crown Colony are estimates because of the violent fluctuations brought about by changing conditions in China. The populace, which sustains itself principally by fishing but also transports cargo, lives on the junks and sampans in which it works.
The Hollywood invaders created a sensation in Aberdeen. Between its floating and shoreline population, this is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and, while impoverished, hardly anyone seemed to be too busy to stop his work and watch what was going on. Relatively few had seen motion pictures and fewer still understood the making of them. This lack of communion with Hollywood was strikingly demonstrated by the fact that only once were Mr. Holden and Miss Jones asked for autographs, whereas at their quarters in the historic Peninsula Hotel they lived under constant siege by insistent hordes armed with autograph books. The stars sometimes required police assistance to get in and out of their rooms.
Inquisitive
The presence of Sub-Inspector Jack Martin, police officer in charge of the district, and a couple of Chinese constables, was a tangible corroboration of Martin’s apt observations on Chinese curiosity. Originally, Mr. Lang planned to conceal his camera in a delivery van parked on the quay. Mr. Holden then was to drive up with Miss Jones, park, and embark upon a sampan propelled by two pretty, if muscular, girls. The director hoped to gain spontaneity in the shot and also to avoid having passers-by stare into the camera, this last being the most common difficulty in work outside the studio. However, the hope was in vain. Cameraman Charles Clarke had to expose his lens briefly for focus; one Chinese eye caught the movement and, instantly, the “hidden camera” was the most interesting object in the vicinity. Inspector Martin was called and the area was cleared except for extra players hired on the spot and instructed not to look at the camera.
However, Mr. Lang soon experienced a typically Oriental contradiction. To film a sequence showing the stars being rowed from the shore, he partially hid the camera on the lower deck of a floating restaurant with the intent of catching them moving through the normally colorful flow of harbor traffic. This included toddlers, barely able to stand, propelling their sampans; the big junks tacking in perilously close quarters, and the various venders sculling and crying their wares.
“CinemaScope was made for this!” Mr. Lang exclaimed.
Shocked Scullers
All was proceeding smoothly when a woman sculled her scampan, with two small children aboard, within a few yards of the camera. She glanced up and hurriedly embraced both children with one arm, shielding them and herself with her back, the while sculling furiously and screaming what could only have been a stream of imprecations. Mr. Lang guessed at the general import of the incident and withdrew the camera until things had quieted down a bit, and then brought it out into full view. After a while, the unattended camera lost some of its glamour and, at a time when the attention of most of the harbor was diverted by a loud quarrel between the skippers of two junks, Mr. Lang made his shot.
Later, he learned that among the fisherfolk are members of the Haka clan, which, in one of the antique dynasties, was driven from its lands to find refuge in the south of China. Its members believe that the camera robs human beings of their souls. It was to this group that the woman so frightened undoubtedly had belonged.
This quaint superstition was, of course, especially interesting and amusing to the Hollywood visitors and provoked much comment.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Holden observed dryly. “Sometimes after we get back to Hollywood, we’ll look around and then we’ll remember these fishermen and what they believe. “Lord!” we’ll say to ourselves, “they were right!”
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