Visa pour Canton

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 whole thing just looks like a series of out-takes from a "Fu Manchu" movie - and not a very good one at that! Richard Basehart is the wily travel agent "Benton" who makes a decent living in Hong Kong after the war. When his local brother "Jimmy" (Burt Kwouk) disappears flying his commercial aircraft, he must head up-river to (rather easily) rescue him and is soon embroiled in an intrigue involving the Red Chinese. His protagonist is the unlikely "Ivono Kong" (Eric Pohlmann - who reminded me of "Con-Fu-Shon" from the 1958 version of "Tomb Thumb"). Deciding the answer lies in neighbouring Canton, he avails himself of an offer of a visa from "Kong" and makes the journey where he encounters the brightly made-up "Lola" (Lisa Gastoni) who is scheming to rescue some refugees from the communists. Can they escape? This is standard Hammer fodder that plays to stereotype from start to finish. The dialogue is banal, as is the acting and the scenario and indeed, even by daytime feature standards, this looks like the budget went on the star and positively nowhere else.

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.

Richard Basehart runs a travel agency in Hong Kong. He has deep connections into the Chinesse community dating back to the War, so when pilot Burt Kwouk goes down near Canton, he goes n and gets him out. But Kwouk's papers vanished with the plane, so the police put him into custody, while Basehart heads back to Canton, to find Lisa Gastoni, who wants him to smuggle people out, and Chinese security man Eric Pohlmann, who wants to arrest everyone.

It has a view of China in this period straight out of Terry and the Pirates, but Basehart's calm demeanor and deep voice instill a sense of calm reality on this Hammer film directed by Michael Carreras. It doesn't always make sense, but it keeps moving right along. Wtih Athene Seyler and Bernard Cribbins.

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.