China Gate (1957)

Director:

Samuel Fuller

Guionista:

Samuel Fuller (writer)

Release Date:

agosto 1957 (Austria)

Genre:

Action | War | Drama

Frase comercial:

An American dynamiter love-locked in war-locked China!

Plot:

Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border...

Plot Keywords:

Major | Mercenary | Captain | Racist | Country Name In Title

Comentarios de los usuarios:

probably not one of Fuller's best, but it has some grit and a bit of guts, plus a few notable cast members

Cast

Gene Barry	...	Sgt. Brock
Angie Dickinson	...	Lucky Legs
Nat 'King' Cole	...	Goldie
Paul Dubov	...	Capt. Caumont
Lee Van Cleef	...	Maj. Cham
George Givot	...	Cpl. Pigalle
Gerald Milton	...	Pvt. Andreades
Neyle Morrow	...	Leung
Marcel Dalio	...	Father Paul
Maurice Marsac	...	Col. De Sars
Warren Hsieh	...	The Boy
Paul Busch	...	Cpl. Kruger
James Hong	...	Charlie
William Soo Hoo	...	Moi Leader
Walter Soo Hoo	...	Guard

Duración:

97 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sonido:

4-Track Stereo

Clasificación:

West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Bronson Caves, Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Globe Enterprises

Trivialidades:

Nat 'King' Cole was paid only $5000 for acting in this film, but he received $75,000 for singing "Three Coins in the Fountain" during the opening credits.

Goofs:

Continuity: Film flopped when Lucky Legs and Sgt. Brock go into the tree house. The sniper has a left handed rifle, Sgt. Brock's knife is on the wrong side, and his watch has moved to his right wrist.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (1996)

Soundtrack:

China Gate

probably not one of Fuller's best, but it has some grit and a bit of guts, plus a few notable cast members

Samuel Fuller's China Gate isn't one to rush out to rent, but if you're already a fan of the director's it's a safe bet that most of his work will be at least brawny and entertaining, and even in the midst of heavy melodrama he can pack a bit of punch in the midst of the studio-set conventions. Make no mistake, this is a studio picture through and through, down to the studio locations (how much of it really is a jungle one might wonder, which isn't much), and the mix and match of real war-torn cityscapes ala Rossellini with stock footage of planes dropping supplies for the citizens. The only overall disappointing aspect is the slightly off ratio of powerful action and tough dialog- there's a little too much of the latter, and not as one of Fuller's most spot-on scripts in trying to wring out the unsentimental emotion, which backfires- as it's almost a minor work when compared to the real big guns, no pun intended, with respect to Fuller's war films. China Gate is simple melodrama, but when it does stick simply, and with Fuller's stylistic strengths and flashes of bravado, it works.

One of the pleasantries of the picture is seeing the actors take to the roles, in typical Fullerian mode, as if it was all heart. Angie Dickinson, in one of her first performances, is a hot little number that has just the right, well, 'something' to keep her along with the other male parts, as she plays a hard-bitten mother named 'Lucky Legs' who is the only one who has the right contacts and repore with the Ho Chi-Mon that she can get a small military team through enemy lines. Her strengths are poised against Gene Barry, her once husband (still technically is, thanks to a lovey-dovey scene in the latter part of the movie), who is a bigot and seems to have had all sympathy for most people drained away. He does, however, gain it back by the time the big climax comes, which maybe isn't too far of a stretch considering the many scenes where he and Lucky Legs get a little more intimate (as close as possible during the 'code' anyway). The good news is Fuller cast them very well for their chemistry on screen, as they are totally opposed at first, and then gradually get closer and closer, her beauty with his scruffy face, each hard-bitten by times spent in war and communist locales.

Meanwhile, Fuller's got a wild card with Nat King Cole, who not only wonderfully sings an unusually placed song (right before all the men head out on their mission through the Vietnam jungle) but is an unexpectedly touching actor. He goes through some subtle looks at times when asked too many questions from a fellow German soldier in the group, is cool and dead-pan when having to face Sgt. Brock, and plays it perfectly when he is in possible enemy fire range and steps on a spike in the ground, keeping himself mute with his face totally in horror. There's also a good scene with a man who gets wounded on a rocky ridge, with his last minutes not stepping into platitudes but simply allowing a sort of quietly sad cross-cutting between the others looking down at the poor solider seen in a painful close-up. Although there's a fairly bad scene with a French foreign legion guy (I think foreign legion) who tells a story accompanied by a sound effect of a whistle, and the dialog between the men in the less plot-dense scenes is just average Fuller, it's great to see a part for Lee Van Cleef as the heel with all the bombs and explosives in the cave, and the climax is a good, if not astounding, wallop.

An obscure early dip into what would become the most insane debacle of Westerners fighting the 'other' halfway across the world (as of then), China Gate is usually exciting and tightly executed, and if it doesn't have the same pulp attitude that Fuller has when he's working full throttle, it never-the-less attains a quality that speaks of the BANG of a headline, telling the story all in one bold swoop, however easy to tell.