Visa pour Canton

"Visa to Canton", or "Passport for China" if you prefer, is a 1960 produced Hammer Film, that I watched along with the "House of Hammer" podcast. Generally, I thought it was alright, but there's some unfortunate aspects now, and a slightly underwhelming plot, that let it down.

Don Benton (Richard Basehart) is a travel agent in Hong Kong, organising passage and access for people around the region. Following a plane crash, he's approached by the CIA to try and retrieve an American downed in communist China. He refuses, but then relents when he discovers that the pilot was his 'brother', Jimmy (Burt Kwouk) from the family he lived with, having been shot down, during the War. With the help of Ivano Kang (Eric Pohlmann) Benton heads for the mainland to attempt to find the plane.

So, it's hard in this day and age not to start with the fact that his film has several actors, who aren't Asian, playing Chinese characters. The most egregious example is Athene Seyler whose very much English, as Moa Tai Tai - matriarch of the family at the heart of the film. Whilst I wouldn't say it's white saviour story, I would also say there's real white saviour vibes from it - as Benton is waited on hand and food by the submissive women that work for him at the travel agency.

The film also has Bernard Cribbins playing a Portuguese character though admitted that is more funny than anything else.

I'd say that I was on my way to enjoying the film though. There's a bit of a boy's own adventure section as he heads into China and dodges soldiers whilst trying to get to Jimmy. Then there's some proto "James Bond" intrigue as he meets an attractive woman and various foreign agents. From there though it all rather just drifts away to not much, as his escape with Lolo, which should be the bulk of the third act is over too quickly.

I've watched films for this podcast that I haven't found as easy to watch as this one - but it's too slight and the ending too underwhelming to really recommend.

Richard Basehart was always a better actor than Sean Connery, so it only makes sense that a role as a spy played by both actors would be better under Basehart. This film is just as good as any Bond film, without all the bells and whistles, as well as special effects. I have always preferred a good story over those other things. A story based in Hong Kong and Canton in the early 1960s is very intriguing for me, as I worked in China for over a decade. Admittedly, there are a number of cliches and stereeotypes associated with Asian characters in the film (except for Jimmy). However, if one can excuse these shortcomings, you will have an interesting film to view.

This film is in the spy-espionage genre but it is wrong to compare it with the James Bond films. It doesn't have the budget, the.gadgets, the suspense, the level of violence and the locations don't wander all round the world. Think more of the Harry Palmer spy films, except that this one is located in Hong Kong not Britain.

The lead character, (played by Richard Basehart), is Don Benton, a former World War II pilot who runs a travel agency in Hong Kong. He has a close relationship with his adopted Chinese family, who hid him from the Japanese during the war. The first scenes portray his travel agency and set him up as a man with wide contacts and somewhat loose scruples. When two customers complain about having difficulty getting a visa to visit the Phillipines he knows exactly who to ask and which official to bribe to get the visas .expedited. He is visited in his office by a US agent called Johnson who clearly wants him to get involved in working for the US government but Benton refuses because he doesn't want to get tangled in politics and orders him out of his office. But another agent later catches up with him and explains that the US government is interested in finding out the whereabouts of several passengers on a plane that crashed in China during a typhoon. Benton's adopted brother Jimmy (played by Bert Kwouk) was the pilot. He survived the crash but is now trapped over the Chinese border. Benton goes looking for Jimmy and brings him back. Jimmy reveals that his plane was decoyed off course over Chinese territory and shot down by two Chinese MiG fighter planes. .Back in Hong Kong the police arrest Jimmy because they believe the plane was intercepted with the connivance of the pilot. Jimmy cannot prove he isn't an agent of the Chinese government because all his identity documents are at the bottom of a river with the wreckage of his plane. Benton then uses one of his contacts to get a visa to Canton so that he can investigate what happened and prove Jimmy's identity.

People who like their spy films with lots of action and suspense are likely to find this one disappointing. There is very little suspense and the plot is largely dialogue-driven but it moves along at a good enough pace to maintain a viewer's interest. Benton's close relationship with his adopted Chinese family adds a warm and pleasing element to the story and the film has a satisfactory ending. It's an average film that is pleasantly watchable.

I always take films in their context and so I'm not generally put off by women (In this film, Benton's sisters) being given limited, stereotyped roles. That was typical of films made in the sixties. And I can put up with white European actors playing Asian characters. But I don't like it when that turns into caricature. The big jarring note in this film is the white actress who plays the Chinese family's matriarch. She is badly miscast. She doesn't look remotely oriental, speaks a cringeworthy version of pidgin English and her acting is more at the level of a pantomime than a film. It's a pity the film makers didn't find a Chinese actress for the role.

What a big fat nothing of a movie.

Richard Basehart plays a travel agent living in Hong Kong. A friend of his has piloted a plane with a courier in it, and the government wants his help in finding the courier; Basehart wants to clear the pilot's name, as the man is like a brother to him.

I really like Richard Basehart but even filmed in color this film had nothing to it except some beautiful location shots. I will say Basehart's relationship with the man's family was lovely.

Eric Pohlmann plays a bad guy, and Athene Seyler does a good job as the matriarch of the pilot's family.

It sort of reminded me of a bad Elvis movie - a travelogue, this time in another country.

One interesting thing - the last part concerns a real event, Massacre of the Sparrows (sounds gross, and it is), which was stopped the year this film was released.

The loud music by Edwin Astley and Cold War politics makes this resemble a Technicolor episode of 'The Saint'.

But instead of Roger Moore we get Richard Basehart wandering nonchalantly about in a sharp sixties suit in front of a succession of travelogue views of Hong Kong before heading back to the studio to concentrate thereafter largely on talk; whereupon the surprise of seeing Athene Seyler billed second is compounded by discovering her speaking pidgin English as Burt Kwouk's grandmother.