Hollywood in Hong Kong: five East-meets-West films from a time when studios used city’s exotic setting to woo viewers
Big stars including William Holden, Orson Welles, Clark Gable and Steve McQueen all filmed in Hong Kong in the 1950s and ’60s as US and British studios tried new locations to get Western audiences back into cinemas
In no small part thanks to the rising popularity of television, Hong Kong suddenly found itself a popular location for Hollywood films in the 1950s and ’60s, including, notably, the adaptation of Richard Mason’s 1957 bestselling novel The World of Suzie Wong.
Leading Hollywood actors such as William Holden, Orson Welles, Clark Gable and Steve McQueen all filmed in the city as part of efforts by the major US studios to halt the steady decline in American cinema attendances.
Suzie Wong: 60 years after Hong Kong icon was created, we recount an interview with late author Richard Mason
Executives believed ideas such as new widescreen formats and bigger budgets for location filming in exotic places, including “East meets West” Hong Kong, would revive their fortunes. But with changing habits among wealthier American consumers, the fall in box-office profits from 1947 only worsened as US demand for television surged.
Here we look at five major foreign productions filmed in Hong Kong.
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
William Holden, winner of the Oscar for best actor in a leading role in 1953, was one of the world’s biggest box-office stars when he arrived in Hong Kong to film scenes for 20th Century Fox’s hit 1955 romantic drama, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.
