One of those little seen now adventure movies the studios churned out in the 1950s, usually teaming two stars (like John Wayne and Lana Turner in THE SEA CHASE, also 1955) and featuring exotic locations - we are in 1950s Hong Kong here and with Clark Gable and Susan Hayward, plus Michael Rennie.
Susan - looking good here - arrives to find her missing husband who it seems in held captive in 'Red China' and engages shady businessman Gable to help her, he is initially reluctant but falls for her charms. There is lots of local colour too in the locations with all those junks and sampans and those shady people at the hotel. It moves along at a nice pace but the two stars never left the studio backlot, though one would not notice. This was Susan's adventure movies period for 20th Century Fox, when she was teamed with the likes of Cooper, Power, Mitchum, before her big emoting roles in I'LL CRY TOMORROW and I WANT TO LIVE!. (Gable it seems did go go to Hong Kong for some location shots).
Gable was getting a bit long in the tooth for these kind of action roles - he wisely stuck to romantic comedies afterwards until his final film THE MISFITS filmed in 1960. Hayward is in her element, she had tested for Scarlett O'Hara in 1939, but finally gets Gable here. Directed by Edward Dmytryk, with a good score by Hugo Friedhofer from a novel by Ernest K Gann, it is one programmer that is worth another look now.
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