China Gate (1957)

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Some things I liked some I did not.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is about the most boring war film I've ever seen. Samuel Fuller was really bad; how he got a reputation for being a good filmmaker is beyond me. Ed Wood was better than this. This is the worst role Angie Dickinson ever had, and my mother is tougher than the Gene Barry character. Nat King Cole was believable. The story is ridiculous, just like the French who spent their money and lives trying to keep their colonial possession. I was rooting for everyone to get killed except Cole. Only the first five minutes of the film (background propaganda on Vietnam) was historically interesting (despite being distorted). Strictly for Americans who thought we belonged in Vietnam. However, it did put me to sleep on the couch for a nice nap.

Set near the end of the French rule of IndoChina (later Vietnam) a mixed group of French Legionnaires, led by an US demolition expert, must blow up an important Chinese ammunition depot. They also get assistance from a "madam"r of mixed blood. Some of director Sam Fuller's movies tend to be a bit over the top and this one sure belongs in that category. It's a crazy story with crazy characters : there is the US demolition man (Gene Barry) , a competent but unsympathetic bully and racist, the brothel owner (Angie Dickinson) who is the former wife of the US guy (they have a son) and there is the French ragtag legionnaire team (including singer Nat King Cole). As with most of these "menonamission" movies some of the team get bumped of during the journey but they get there ofcourse in the end, no less thanks to the fact that Angie Dickinson seems to have slept with half of the Chinese army stationed in Vietnam.It does move along at fairly brisk pace and Fuller knows how to work with the Cinemascope format but the story, and especially the ending is completely ludicrous and unbelievable (you 'll have to find out for yourselves).Somehow Fuller felt this wasn't exactly a winner so he followed this up (in the same year) with "Run of the Arrow" a though and excellent western starring Rod Steiger, which has become a real classic.

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.

Everything that's wrong about Sam Fuller pictures pops up here, with little of what's right being present. The script is full of silly lines, and the two leads are several miles out of their depth. Nat King Cole is the best thing in the picture, giving a sensitive and believable performance in a supporting role. Not bad enough to be entertaining on that basis, just fairly stupid.