Soldier of Fortune (1955)

Truly Dreadful Film

Good concept, poorly executed.

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.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A woman , Susan Hayward , enlists a shipping magnate , Clark Gable , to help her to find his lost husband , Gene Barry , in Red China . Meanwhile , Clark becomes involved with a motley collection of unsavoury underworld figures. As there are rumors that the hubby might be held by the Communist Chinese military as a spy and Gable set out in hunting the missing man in Hong Kong , Macao and Canton . An entertaining but slowly paced adventure has Gable as a shady smuggler entrepreneur who attempts to save the husband photographer of a distinguished Mistress, Hayward. Late Clark vehicle with the ordinary formula beginning to fall and feel the postwar strain ; besides, there is not enough action to keep adventure fans happy . It hardly ever delivers fast movement , though there is an exciting final getaway . Still a decent but mediocre fun, at times , from two top drawer stars, Gable and Hayward. As Susan had been among the myriad starlets vying for the Scarlett OHara role nearly two decades early .Here Hayward has a character less dynamic than those she was used to at the time , like the Oscarized : I want to live¡ . Support cast is pretty well , there's plenty of notorious secondaries as Michael Rennie , Gene Barry , Jack Kruschen , Russell Collins , Tom Tully , Leo Gordon, Richard Loo , Mel Welles , a very small role by James Hong , Alexander D'Arcy , and it is surprise to find the glamour of a silent cinema great star : Anne Stern as a middle-age woman who marries Russell Collins. The picture contains colorful cinematography in Cinemascope, Color De Luxe, by Leo Tover, probing his camera really makes the teeming streets and water-ways of Hong Kong and Macao spring to life . And sensitive and romantic musical score by Hugo Friedhofer, including oriental sounds. The film was regular but professionally directed by Edward Dmytryck . He was a fine craftsman who directed a lot of films, some of them are considered classic movies .Howewer, Edward's later pictures tended to be on the sluggish side , such as Soldier of Fortune .Edward was a member of the communist party and he was denounced before HUAC . He was one of the so-called " Hollywood Ten" , though , subsequently he turned an informer and was panned by the establishment . Dmytryck made films of all kinds of genres such as Western: Shalako,Alvarez Kelly, Raintree country, Broken lance, Warlock ; Wartime : Anzio, The Caine Mutiny, Hitler's children, Young Lions, Back to Bataan ; Drama : The carpetbaggers, Mirage, The human factor, The left hand of God , The mountain, Till the end of time, Crossfire , Her first romance , Tender comrade , End of affair , Cornered , among others.

CinemaScope lenses by Bausch & Lomb. Color by DeLuxe. Produced by Buddy Adler. Copyright 1955 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 27 May 1955. U.S. release: June 1955. U.K. release: 24 October 1955. Australian release: 29 March 1956, Sydney opening at the Regent. 8,603 feet. 95½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: In search of her missing photographer husband, Jane Hoyt (Susan Hayward) arrives in Hong Kong and learns at the U.S. Consulate that her mission is futile, that neither the United States nor the British government can help her. She feels that she must try nevertheless, and registers at a hotel that services a conglomeration of businessmen, servicemen, entertainers, and ne'er- do-wells from all over the world. Jane gets in touch with Inspector Merryweather (Michael Rennie), of the local marine police, who, although unable to help her officially, promises to do all he can for her on his own. He asks her to identify two cameras that the police had picked up from a junk captain at the harbor. She confirms that they belonged to her husband. Merryweather then suggests that she inquire at a place called "Tweedie's". Jane is about to be thrown out of Tweedie's when Rene Chevalier (Alex D'Arcy) joins her at the table as if she were waiting for him. He tells her that he knew her husband and had seen him one night with Fernand Rocha (Mel Welles) and a girl named Maxine Chan (Frances Fong). With nothing more than this information she contacts Maxine, who leads her to Hank Lee (Clark Gable), of whom Merryweather had warned her.COMMENT: Although it took good money on the strength of its Hong Kong in CinemaScope background and its starring twosome, "Soldier of Fortune" is a rather ordinary tale with inconsistently motivated Mills and Boon principals forced into a combination pulp novel romance and comic strip adventure. In this latter connection, keen movie buffs will notice some remarkable similarities between "Soldier of Fortune" and Milton Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" — especially as regards some of the bizarre background characters which give the movie some welcome jolts of interest, thanks to the efforts of players like Anna Sten (the former Goldwyn leading lady of the 1930s), Tom Tully, Russell Collins and other assorted misogynist bar habitues.OTHER VIEWS: Another early CinemaScope film in which the accent is firmly on the CinemaScope scenery (this time the travelogue cameras focus on Hong Kong) rather than the juvenile dialogue, stock characters and "Boys Own Paper" plot. Critics are usually tempted to say at this point that the players do their best — but they don't really. If they'd had a grain of sense they would have played it all tongue-in-cheek; but no, they're perfectly serious about the whole puerile business. Dmytryk's flat-footed direction matches the pedestrian plot. The appearance of Anna Sten in a minor role is some compensation for movie buffs, but otherwise the whole film, aside from the scenery and the lushly romantic music score is a very ordinary, very tepid and very dated anti-Chinese Communist tract. - JHR writing as George Addison.

Fiery Jane Hoyt, played by Susan Hayward of the blazing red hair, arrives in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong in search of her husband, Louis, a photographer who disappeared while on a shoot in Mainland China. Louis, played by Gene Barry, entered China illegally without a visa and has been detained by the Communist authorities. Hayward enlists the aid of a shipping magnate with connections, Clark Gable, to locate her husband and bring him out. While the chemistry between Hayward and Gable is lukewarm at best, an on-screen romance ensues, which undercuts the credibility of Hayward's portrayal of a loving faithful wife in search of her missing husband. The gruff mature Gable, who incongruously has adopted three Asian children, makes the moves on Hayward, who stoically receives his kisses and allows him to hold her hand across a table. Actually, the coolness between Gable and Hayward is a torrid fire compared to the freeze between Barry and Hayward. Thus, both the motivation for Hayward's journey to Hong Kong in search of her missing husband and her attraction to Gable are undercut by the lack of warmth between the actors; what the script says and what the performers suggest are miles apart. When not being pursued by Gable or other wolves on the prowl, Hayward searches the city for information on her husband. The search brings her into contact with a number of supporting players, including Michael Rennie, Alex D'Arcy, and Tom Tully, and several distracting subplots, which only serve to remind viewers that the film was adapted from a novel by Ernest K Gann, who also wrote the script.Director Edward Dmytryk keeps the action scenes going at a decent pace, and Hayward's search is initially intriguing. However, even Dmytryk can do little with the unconvincing love affair or the lack of chemistry between his three stars, who acquit themselves professionally, but no more. Leo Tover's colorful cinematography captures an exotic, but now bygone, Hong Kong of junks, sampans, and stunning vistas of mountains and bays. Set in the 1950's, "Soldier of Fortune" would make an ideal double bill with "Love is a Many Splendored Thing," a more successful romantic film that shares both location and period with the Gable-Hayward vehicle. The Dmytryk film has much in its favor: an exotic locale, fine cinematography, two top stars, an able supporting cast, and a fairly good story. Unfortunately, "Soldier of Fortune" is one of those movies that is worth seeing, but less than the sum of its parts.

Saw this as a boy on Saturday afternoon. The DVD has all the lush, superb photography and stunning music that Cinemascope knocked you out with. It placed Hong Kong in my mind as the "exotic" place in China, with a sober overtone of British discipline at the time. The plot is necessarily contrived, but believable enough. Characters veer to stereotypes but the acting rescues them from going over the cliff and its satisfying to see the very professional, sometimes charismatic cast bring vitality to even the smallest part - the "defrocked" Magistrate still reading the Wedding vows being one. Gable, admittedly looking very worn, but fir for all of that, and Haywood dominate the film, but Rennie is dignified and shows the right touch of understatement, typifying the type of decent and selfless Englishmen who were the British Empire's backbone and now long departed the scene. Action, locale and dialogue are mixed deftly by the director. It is a blessed relief to be carried along by a film without the current use of manic editing of current film makers. Sit back and let this classic piece of adventure and visual entertainment wash over you. If the final scene on the Peak Tram Staion, Friedhoffer's atmospheric score overwhelming your reason and old Hong Kong spread seductively below,when Gable gets the girl, does not tingle your every movie nerve, nothing ever will