China Smith

As I sat watching the DVD of the original "The Flight of the Phoenix", I was struck by seeing Dan Duryea. In my mind I kept seeing him in a white suit, on a black and white television screen. One of the joys of the IMDb is that one can find evidence of strange memories. We got our first television set in 1953; I was eight years old. I did not recall until now but I watched "China Smith"! The memories from so long ago include Duryea's insouciance (a word I am sure I did not know in the early 1950s), the exotic locales and the beautiful women. Particularly the beautiful women. *sigh* There was an appeal to the anti-hero China Smith and though this series was hardly as influential, either generally or personally, as something like "Maverick", it still deserves to be remembered by a comment in the IMDb.

I remember that my mom and dad were fans of this show when we got our first television set. I don't remember much about the show except the white suit he wore as a pretty tough guy. And that the show was set in Asia and Smith was always amidst beautiful babes. I have been a Dan Duryea fan for a long time. I always enjoyed seeing him in feature films. He usually played a bad guy, but there was always something cool about his characters. Charismatic, somehow. I loved the Twilight Zone episode where he played the drunken gunfighter. Duryea made his mark playing many a villain or miscreant, but by all accounts, he was one of Hollywood's real nice guys. I plan to try to buy the 'China Smith' episodes and look back to see what my parents found so compelling about this character.

Since only a few comments, I'll add my memories of China Smith too. I was only about 8 or 10 y/o when I watched China Smith on my parents first TV in California. I haven't seen any of them since. They seemed so realistically foreign and adventurous at the time, seemingly taking place in exotic Asian locals. Low (cheap) production values went a long way back then on TV. We were so innocent at that time. But Dan Duryea did do an excellent job, with an attitude so perfect for the part, a little like Indiana Jones' persona decades later. I've now seen him in countless other supporting roles, generally playing clever devious bad guy parts. But I'll always remember him primarily for the hero in China Smith. I don't really remember what the plots were about other than their Asian locals, but I do remember throughly enjoying them. I don't think I want to see any China Smith episodes today (even if they were available) and spoil all those great childhood memories. Oh, today I'm a happily retired engineer living in Thailand. Hmm, did China Smith have anything to do with that?

The bad boy hero goes back to the beginnings of literature. In Hollywood it grew most directly out of the film noir school of the forties. In the early days of TV overly sweet and sappy rom-coms were the norm, along with westerns, but somebody had a taste for noir, and so "China Smith" was born. And what baddest, bad boy hero was there but Dan Duryea? He could play a strong, bold villain, he could play a weak, cowardly villain. He could be a nice, honorable guy. He could be a rat. China Smith was all of those. Rod Taylor always wanted to be an action hero with a brain, and so he tried to imitate China Smith in his series "Hong Kong", but it didn't have the grittiness. Sure, the sets were poorly made and the lighting was murky. Duryea was the most talented actor in the series, but he more than made up for the other's failings. Those of us who followed it faithfully in the early, dim days of television knew it was hokum, but we loved it nonetheless.