This is the latest instalment in an ongoing feature series reflecting on instances of East Meets West in world cinema, including cases of China-US co-productions. In the years after World War II, cinema was forced to reinvent itself. To counter the rise of TV, movies became bigger, brighter and costlier, whisking viewers away to places far more exciting than their living rooms.
British melodrama Ferry to Hong Kong (1959) is emblematic of such escapist efforts. Shot in expensive CinemaScope widescreen entirely on location, it was the Rank studio’s most ambitious project to date, even if, viewed today, it feels like a picture postcard from another era. The story concerns Mark Conrad (Curt Jürgens), a down-on-his-luck drinker and gambler who gets expelled from Hong Kong after a bar fight.
Forced to take an ancient steamer called the Fa Tsan (or “Fat Annie”) to Macau, he is refused entry there as well, and finds himself stuck, travelling back and forth between the two islands for months, much to the chagrin of Captain Cecil Hart (Orson Welles). On board, he makes friends with the crew, including engineer Joe Skinner (Noel Purcell), and romances the much younger teacher Miss Ferrers (Sylvia Syms), while gradually making himself at home. After plenty of high-seas drama, not least being captured by pirates, the Fat Annie is eventually sunk, but not before Conrad has redeemed himself.
As one commentator noted, the film is part Casablanca – on a very bad day – and part The.