Ferry to Hong Kong

Ferry to Hong Kong is a mildly amusing film due to an obese Orson Welles treating the film as a farcical comedy. He plays Captain Hart, who despite the prissy exterior is a bit of a blackguard. He runs an old ferry between Hong Kong to Macau.

Hart is stuck with Mark Conrad (Curd Jürgens) a drunken, troublemaker, expelled from Hong Kong and denied entry to Macau. He is destined to remain a passenger on the ferry much to Hart's anger, he even sets up a rigged bet to get rid off this unwanted passenger. Despite looking dishevelled Conrad earns the sympathy of Liz (Sylvia Syms) who is a teacher to some children regularly on board.

Conrad and Captain Hart have to set aside their mutual loathing when the ship encounters a typhoon and later seized by pirates with Conrad having to take responsibility and control of the situation the ship's passengers find themselves in.

The film benefits from the Hong Kong location shooting which provides a colourful backdrop, the script is pedestrian and at times hammy as Welles performance.

As has been mentioned it is extremely interesting to see Hong Kong as it was in the 1950s,much different to the way it is today.However as to the film,what we're they thinking of.Lewis Gilbert is such an experienced director having made so many fine films.Orson Welled is completely out of sync with everyone else.I couldn't work out if he was doing an impersonation of Charles Laughton or Arthur Treacher.Sylvia Simms as a romantic lead for Curt Jurgens.Apparently Jurgens was constantly arguing with WellesThe pirate theme at the end at least brings a bit of action to the end of the film.You don't know whether to laugh or cry.Maybe the best description is,it's Rank.

An interesting premise, somewhere between "Casablanca" and Suzie Wong, with name-brand actors. But this wound up as a weak period piece redeemed by a few (very few) clever moments and many nice background shots of Hong Kong as it was. Not many mid-20th-century films produced in the West with Hong Kong themes are available on DVD or video (at least we have "World of Suzie Wong") and fewer still had actual Hong Kong locations, so I am not disappointed in the film. Otherwise, it's a watchable "B" movie with Orson Welles as a bonus.

Lewis Gilbert, who directed three passable James Bond vehicles (YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, MOONRAKER, and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) must have been wet behind the ears when he directed FERRY TO HONG KONG... and with Orson Welles as captain of the good ship Fat Annie in the cast!

Curt Jurgens, a German-born thespian of some quality and fame in the 1950s and 1960s, plays the dashing drunk and disheveled hero who wants to beat the dragon, encouraged to that end by exceedingly beautiful Sylvia Sims.

With some fisticuffs, fights, and blows over the head delivered by a fast fattening Welles, ably aided by fast aging Jurgens with pirates and criminals as targets, you see poor Fat Annie bubble down and sink in Kowloon Bay off then British colony Hong Kong, with some memorable sunset shots (could it be symbolic of the sun setting on the British Empire?)

If this crit makes no sense to you, the plot made no sense to me either, and it drags on for an interminable 111 minutes. I will NOT watch it again.

After boy-genius Orson Welles gave us his debut masterpiece `Citizen Kane', followed it up with the wonderful `Magnificent Ambersons'(and who could forget his charismatic Harry Lime in Carol Reed's `Third Man'?) he really had nowhere to go except down.

But I never expected to see him as he is in `Ferry to Hong Kong' mugging and pulling faces to try to produce cheap laughs in an awful English accent. He even waddles around at one stage with a board strapped to his back, all dignity gone. To paraphrase a well-known script-writer from Stratford `When great Orson fell, what a fall was there!'

Otherwise this is a pretty poor attempt at a comedy with perhaps some interest for those who want to see ever-changing Hong Kong as it was in the late Fifties.

I wish I hadn't seen `Ferry to Hong Kong'