Treffpunkt Hongkong

Even toward the end of his marvelous career, Clark Gable's screen persona of the charming, irresistible bounder was untarnished. Unhappy with the roles MGM was giving him, he did not renew his contract. "Soldier of Fortune," which Gable subsequently did for 20th Century Fox, is a big budget, good-looking movie with big stars, none of which can hide the fact that it's a routine story that John Hodiak could have done in black and white in 1950 and probably did.

Susan Hayward plays a woman who arrives in Hong Kong to look for her photographer husband (Gene Barry) who has slipped into China illegally. She runs into of a bunch of sleazy characters and finally meets Henry Lee (Gable), a soldier of fortune with money and contacts. He's an older version of Rhett Butler - out for himself but capable of goodness as well. He falls hard for Hayward and becomes more determined than ever to find her husband so he doesn't have to compete with a ghost. With two such attractive stars, it's obvious what's going to happen.

The stars and the supporting cast - Michael Rennie, Tom Tully, Anna Sten et al - are all very good. It's a beautifully photographed film that undoubtedly looked great on the big screen with its Technicolor panoramas of Hong Kong, but alas, it's not very exciting. Gable looks fantastic and immaculate in his white suit, his smile as dimpled and his voice as gruff as ever, and Hayward, not the warmest actress who ever lived, is excellent as a concerned and confused woman. They work very well together.

It's hard to say the movie is not worth seeing because as excellent as some of our actors are today, there are no Gables. There was only one - and checking him out is always worthwhile.

This typically glossy Fox production from the 1950s, hinging on equal parts star power and exotic locations, was another title I had missed out on several times along the years; after its recent SE DVD release, I made it a point to catch up with the film next time around.

Anyway, for an adventure film, it's rather talky and, even if just 96 minutes long, it devotes too much attention to irrelevant subplots involving secondary characters (including gruff bar owner Tom Tully and a comeback role for former Swedish star Anna Sten) to the ultimate detriment of major ones: in fact, Susan Hayward – who gets to interact with most of the cast – is given more screen-time than Clark Gable (which is even more surprising when one remembers that this was Gable's first non-MGM film in 20 years!) and, in spite of their billing, both Michael Rennie and Gene Barry don't have a lot to do until the climax (though, in the latter's case, it's understandable as he's a prisoner in the hands of Communist China).

With respect to the narrative itself (Ernest K. Gann adapted his own novel for the screen), the film seems to fall between several stools – action, romance, politics – but, with its eye firmly on the box-office, this superficial and sometimes contrived approach ends up satisfying no one. That said, it's a generally entertaining ride – and Dmytryk handles the proceedings in an efficient, if highly impersonal, manner.

In the end, I'd say that SOLDIER OF FORTUNE is the least of the 3 Fox titles released as part of the rather expensive "The Clark Gable Collection" – the others being William Wellman's THE CALL OF THE WILD (1935) and Raoul Walsh's THE TALL MEN (1955; disappointingly, this is the only one not to feature an accompanying Audio Commentary).

Soldier of Fortune marked Clark Gable's first film away from MGM after his contract was not renewed. 20th Century Fox did right by him, gave him a film to shoot on location in Hong Kong and an actress who was at the height of her career as a new leading lady in Susan Hayward.

This was the second big epic film they shot in Hong Kong that year, the other being Love Is A Many Splendored Thing. Unlike the William Holden- Jennifer Jones epic, Soldier of Fortune leans more to adventure and intrigue than romance.

Hayward's husband Gene Barry is a prisoner of the Chinese government, apparently having taken some pictures he shouldn't have as a freelance photo journalist. Hayward's in Hong Kong to try and affect a rescue and she comes up against some unscrupulous types including Gable. Gable's more interested in her, but helping the husband's rescue is a package deal.

I would have hoped that with the one and only teaming of Gable and Hayward a better story could have been found. Soldier of Fortune isn't a bad film, hardly the worst thing either of them did, but in essence it's really a souped up Grade B adventure saga. The class of the players make it seem more than it is. Plus the fact it was done on location as opposed to the backlot of 20th Century Fox.

Soldier of Fortune has a good cast of character actors. Look for some good performances by Michael Rennie as the British inspector, Alexander D'Arcy as a conniving French rogue and Tom Tully as a slimy influence peddler.

Susan Hayward arrives in Hong Kong because her rather irresponsible reporter husband has disappeared--most likely across the border in Communist China. A wide variety of low-lifes offer to help but most seem intent with either bedding her or getting her money. One of these disreputable characters is played by Clark Gable--a man who seems to be heavily involved in the black market and smuggling. Of course Gable falls for Hayward, but the fact that she's loyal to her husband keeps getting in his way.

This is an awfully familiar plot considering Clark Gable played in many movies with similar plot threads from the 1930s until the end of his career. In so many of his films, he played a rogue who was often on the wrong side of the law and who claimed to have no loyalty to anything but himself. However, again and again, by the end of the film, his character turned out to be decent after all--and usually get the girl. Despite all this being present in SOLDIER OF FORTUNE, I enjoyed the movie for two reasons. First, Gable always played those parts so well that it's hard to dislike these films. Second, setting the movie in Hong Kong was a welcome relief and breathed life into the old theme. In particular, the spectacular scenery really enhanced the film and made it sparkle.

This is one of those early Twentieth Century Fox CinemaScope potboilers where the studio sent (most of) the cast and crew to actual locations and took full DeLuxe Color advantage of places that most of the potential audience would never visit in real life. So, the bustling and already festooned-with-highrises city of Hong Kong is the principal setting for the jumping-off point of the plot. It's pretty obvious that Gable is actually there in Hong Kong for a few of the shots but Susan Hayward, embroiled in a custody battle after her divorce from Lex Barker, didn't dare leave the U.S., or her chances of caring for her children by that marriage might have been scotched. Therefore long shots and a few medium ones of her were cleverly arranged with a double and she performs all of her closeups, et cetera, safely ensconced on the Fox soundstages in West Los Angeles and against some rather good back projections.

Gable and Hayward are a pretty good team and Michael Rennie lends his usual elegant support. Gene Barry has a rather thankless role as Susan's eventually rejected husband, and the supporting cast, including the Asians appearing as various Chinese, are all convincing under Edward Dmytryk's workmanlike direction.

For me the real stars, however, are Leo Tover's excellent use of the CinemaScope lenses and, once again, Hugo Friedhofer's atmospheric score. In my opinion, no other Hollywood master of the full orchestral enhancement was able to cue the audience and call up some real emotion with so few bars of music. This film is a sterling example of his art. Just check out the closing few moments of the film. He could send you out of the theater convinced you'd seen something even better than what you had actually viewed!