China Gate (1957)

Very best movie i ever watch

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

China Gate 1957I caught Sam Fuller's 1957 war film CHINA GATE for the first time in a good 20 plus years. The DVD is finally available with its full black-and-white CinemaScope image intact. The old pan and scan VHS was terrible. While not the first Hollywood film to deal with the war in what was then French Indochina, this one comes across as a precursor to the American involvement in Vietnam.The leads are played here by Gene Barry and Angie Dickinson, with support by, Nat King Cole, Lee Van Cleef, Gerald Milton, James Hong, Paul Dubov and Marcel Dalio. The film is set in 1954 and the French are on the losing end of a string of battles with the Viet Minh. Gene Barry is an American Korean War vet who has returned to Vietnam to continue his fight against the Reds. As with most leads in a Fuller film, Barry is a typically conflicted hero. He volunteers to go on a mission for the French Foreign Legion to destroy Soviet-supplied ammunition dumps near the border with Red China. The expedition is to be guided in country by a Eurasian bar girl known far and wide as Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson). Dickinson just happens to Barry's estranged wife as well the mother of his young son. The kicker here is that Barry could not handle that the boy looked Chinese, so Barry left to fight in Korea. Barry is still fighting because he hates the Reds, while Dickinson is going because the French government promised to help her get her son to America. The group slowly works its way north through the thick jungle past various Viet Minh outposts. Dickinson is known to most of the Red officers from her days running a popular bar. She has also brought along a generous supply of booze to ply the guards with. The group has a few close calls along the way losing some of their explosives and a few men. The group finally reaches the area where the Reds have stockpiled enormous amounts of arms and ammo. They are all stored in a large complex of caves. Of course Miss Dickinson happens to know the Red officer in charge, Lee Van Cleef. Cleef is more than happy to show Dickinson around after a few belts from one of Dickinson's bottles. During the journey, Barry has finally realized what a turd he was for leaving his wife and son while he went off to fight. He promises to make sure the boy makes it to the States. While Dickinson distracts several of the guards at the entrance of the cave complex, Barry and his men wire up the arms etc with explosives. Everything is wired and ready to go when the Reds discover the explosives. They cut the wire hooked to the detonator. Dickinson rushes back inside the cave and hooks up the wires again, blowing herself, the caves, and most of the Reds to kingdom come. Sam Fuller wrote and directed this film. His other work, include the excellent Korean War films, THE STEEL HELMET and FIXED BAYONETS. He also dabbled in film noir with, PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, HOUSE OF BAMBOO and THE CRIMSOM KIMONO. His most well-known works are probably, THE BIG RED ONE and MERRILL'S MARUDERS. The film, though mostly studio bound, is quite sharp looking with plenty of nice blacks and greys. The man handling the cinematography is two time Oscar nominated, and one time winner, Joseph Biroc. Biroc worked between 1943 and 1987. He is well known to film noir fans for his work on, THE KILLER THAT STALKED NEW YORK, LOAN SHARK, WITHOUT WARNING, VICE SQUAD, THE GLASS WALL, DOWN THREE DARK STREETS, BENGAZI, THE GARMENT JUNGLE and CRY DANGER. His most well know film is IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

Very unusual for me to watch a war movie, but anything directed by Sam Fuller deserves consideration and I was intrigued with the casting that included, Angie Dickinson, Nat King Cole and Lee Van Clef. As it tuned out this was not as bad as it might have been, helped very much by the performances, Fuller achieves from his cast. Set in Vietnam, then Indochina, it features the last days of the French rule, when the Americans were seemingly the good guys dropping food parcels to the indigenous population. Nat King Cole, sings the title track twice and puts in a really convincing performance as one of the French rag bag group who trek through the jungle to carry out their wondrous mission. Mostly filmed on back lots, Fuller has interspersed stock footage to give a reasonable approximation of the location. Angie Dickinson is a real trouper and plays this very wide with much non PC banter with the Chinese, who she seems to keep happy with promise of brandy and sex. Lee Van Clef is a real surprise here (I thought he had always had that weathered look!) and helps to make the last quarter a bit more fun.

On this evidence, Fuller is a strident and uncompromising anti-Communist anti-racist. You heard me. This is a late-50s movie about 'Indochina' - a little ahead of the curve there! - which takes the USA to task for not leaping right in there with their French pals; the enemy has Stalin all over the wall of their lookout posts. So it's more than a little silly, to put it nicely. But given this, the racial issues it confronts are above and beyond the call of duty - the espionage tour our heroes embark on is really an opportunity for dynamite expert Gene Barry to smarten up after abandoning his distinctly Asian-featured kid from his liaison with half-white Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson). Along the way there are exciting scenes, surprisingly well-modulated performances, and a budget-conscious stylistic trick I've never seen before: shot almost entirely in wide master shot, Fuller constantly pans-and-scans the black-and-white Scope image to approximate camera movement. Here's a guy who's smart enough to know that grainy (not to mention silly) won't matter if the damn thing MOVES.

I was 17 and had just fallen hard in love with Gayle. That night in 1957 when I saw China Gate I was not with Gayle but another. The haunting title track "China Gate" somehow was burned into my memory. I remember little of the movie, but Nat's melancholy rendition was so haunting that when I replay it over in my mind some of that lost-love feeling still tears at my heart 42 years later.