ferbs54 Review of Soldier of Fortune

Soldier of Fortune (1955)

"The Brooklyn Bombshell" Meets "The King of Hollywood"

[6/10 · 17 June 2009]

The film in which "The Brooklyn Bombshell," Susan Hayward, met "The King of Hollywood," Clark Gable, 1955's "Soldier of Fortune" is a middling adventure that should have been much better. In this one, Hayward journeys to Hong Kong to begin her search for her missing husband, a journalist being held prisoner in mainland China, and enlists the aid of junk-fleet smuggler Gable as a last resort. If this scenario of a journalist being held captive by an Asian Communist country strikes anyone as being implausible, just consider what is happening in North Korea today, and the plight of newswomen Ling and Lee! Anyway, with old pros like Gable and Hayward, the film is certainly well acted and interesting, and the two, in their only screen pairing, DO have a nice chemistry. They are ably abetted by Gene Barry (as Susan's husband) and Michael Rennie (as a sympathetic British police officer), and the scenery of mid-century Hong Kong is at least as spectacular as that shown in "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" and "The World of Suzie Wong." Unfortunately, the picture has its problems. Despite being scripted by Ernest K. Gann, from his novel, the story seems inadequately fleshed out, and several subplots (that bar wedding, the Chinese ex-general) peter out and seem pointless (maybe they are there simply to add color?). Perhaps worst of all, the rescue of Barry from his jail on the mainland is accomplished waaay too easily; if only WE could send some can-do guys into North Korea to conk a few heads and waltz those women out! Hayward did not go to Hong Kong during the filming of this picture, and though director Edward Dmytryk (who would make another movie based in China that same year, "The Left Hand of God") & Co. work their magic, this fact is sometimes distractingly obvious. I must add that I enjoyed "Soldier of Fortune" more during a repeat viewing, with lowered expectations. But then again, I can watch Susan Hayward in anything....