China Gate Blu-ray Review
Fuller running on empty.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 27, 2013
And just like that, Vietnam is suddenly all over the news again. On left leaning MSNBC, Rachel Maddow in her
introduction
to a recent documentary called
Hubris has used the rationale behind the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and
escalation
of the Vietnam conflict as a direct predecessor to what she sees as malfeasance in the buildup to the Iraq War. But the
right has its own Vietnam "issue". When a recent episode of
The Amazing Race featured a pit stop in Hanoi,
replete
with a visit to the site of a downed American B-52 and a performance by Communist youth, the pundits on Fox News
marched in lock step in apparent disgust over what
they perceived as CBS' idiocy and left leaning bias.
Vietnam's
history is incredibly convoluted, providing ample opportunity for both right and left talking points, and is furthermore
tangled up in various Western countries' pseudo-imperialistic ambitions.
None of that is even hinted at in the opening of Samuel Fuller's 1957 opus
China Gate. Against a backdrop of
stock footage, we hear a portentous narrator telling us that the film is dedicated to France (
France?!?), for
introducing Christianity to the heathens (I redact slightly, but that's the gist of it) and for being
the last bulwark against those nasty encroaching Communists. Of course in 1957, the United States hadn't yet really
gotten
deeply involved in what many on both the right and left would later describe as a quagmire, and the Cold War was very
much in full swing, so this almost humorous combination of xenophobia and jingoism is perhaps at least a bit more
understandable. But it
sets
China Gate up right from the get go as a film that is going to deal mostly in stark blacks and whites, with
no
shades of gray interrupting its political stance, even if its interpersonal stories are at least a bit more nuanced.
China Gate for all its flaws (which we'll get to in a moment) is quite a fascinating offering in the filmographies of
several of its participants. Stars Gene Barry and Angie Dickinson never
quite captured the brass ring of movie
stardom, despite both having at least a few high profile roles in their careers. Both of them are probably going to be
best
remembered
for their television outings, Barry as
Bat Masterson and Dickinson for
Police Woman. This is also one of
the
handful of acting roles Nat "King" Cole undertook, though one suspects it didn't hurt to have such a well known singer
in
the cast to warble the haunting theme song. Speaking of the music, this was the last film that Victor Young scored, and
in
fact Young died before he could finish it, with (as the credits state) "his good friend" Max Steiner completing everything,
making it a fascinating melding of two iconic Golden Age composers. Then there's writer-director-producer Samuel Fuler
himself, the
agent provocateur who had helmed several iconic low budget films like
Pickup on South
Street
and who would go on to do
The Naked
Kiss and
Shock Corridor
,
but whose time at Fox had not exactly been a bed of roses. Fuller is credited with having made one of the first major
films
about the Korean conflict (
The Steel Helmet), and whatever else may be said about
China Gate, it was
like
its predecessor one of the first major films about the Vietnam conflict.
Dickinson plays the wonderfully nicknamed Lucky Legs, a so-called "half caste" (i.e., half European, half Chinese)
woman of relatively ill repute who allegedly runs an opium den and saloon as well as perhaps trafficking in what might
politely be called the pleasures of the flesh. Lucky is mother to an adorable young son (Warren Hsieh) whom we meet
in the film's first narrative scene (after the prologue), attempting to protect his equally adorable young puppy from a
man who obviously means to take it from him and eat it (yes,
eat it—there's no other food in Saigon). Lucky is
soon recruited by Col. De Sars (Maurice Marsac), who wants the well known Lucky to lead a black ops force through
enemy territory to the so-called China Gate, the border with China where the Communists stash their ammunition
depots. Lucky is reticent, but is ultimately won over when the Colonel accedes to her demands that the price for her
involvement is that her son will be sent to the United States, where his "Asian" looks won't be a hindrance.
Everything seems set until the Colonel introduces the man set to be in charge of the mission, American GI Johnny Brock
(Gene Barry). It turns out Brock is not only the estranged husband of Lucky, he's the deadbeat dad to the sweet little
boy. Brock had freaked out when the boy was born and Brock noticed his "Chinese" eyes (I am only using terminology
lifted directly from the film, so any political incorrectness is not my own, believe me). Obviously, Lucky is in no mood to
deal with Brock. That leads to a few more minutes of fairly turgid melodrama, including a major dressing down of Brock
by both Lucky
and a local Priest who has obviously been able to look past Lucky's "career" choices to see the
golden heart within the woman.
Brock has assembled a motley crew of mercenaries, all who are frankly fairly cliché ridden and obviously meant to
provide a cross section of various nationalities and loyalties. The most interesting of these is the somewhat strangely
named Goldie (Nat "King" Cole), a World War II vet from the 1st Divison (yes, the same
Big Red One that Fuller
fought in himself and would make into one of his best remembered films in the early eighties). Cole acquits himself
quite well in this role (in fact some may argue considerably better than either Barry or especially Dickinson, who just
seems out of her league) and sings the haunting title song twice during the film.
Dramatically,
China Gate is near laughable at times. In a way it reminded me of a sort of reverse
Wages of Fear, with a ragtag
group of people traveling through dangerous territory to get explosives to their destination. We get a lot of
"meaningful" soliloquys about everything from the senselessness of war to the senselessness of racism, but it's
delivered in such portentous dialogue that some may find it hard to take. The film offers some kind of peculiar
supporting performances, including a surprisingly low key and natty Lee Van Cleef as Lucky's erstwhile boyfriend who
just happens
to be the Commander of the munitions depot she's taken the brigade to in order to blow it up.
China Gate was a brief attempt by Fuller to gain respectability with a relatively large budget and interesting (to
say the least) cast. It was also perhaps his attempt to refute previous charges that he was himself a Communist, and
so the film's "rah-rah" jingoistic spirit is perhaps understandable if no less palatable. The film ends with a supposedly
tragic sacrifice and an expected rapprochement, but by then my hunch is few will really care who lives, who dies, and
who ends up holding hands as the plaintive title song leads to a fade out.
