''Passport to China'' (a.k.a. ''Visa to Canton'') is a 1960 British

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

spy film The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way (such as the adaptations of John le Carré) or as a basis for fantasy (such as many James Bond films) ...

released by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

; directed by

Michael Carreras Michael Henry Carreras (21 December 1927 – 19 April 1994) was a British film producer and director. He was known for his association with Hammer Film Productions, Hammer Films, being the son of founder James Carreras, and taking an execu ...

and starring

Richard Basehart John Richard Basehart (August 31, 1914 – September 17, 1984) was an American actor. He starred as Admiral Harriman Nelson in the television science-fiction drama ''Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'' (1964–68). He also portrayed Wilton Knight ...

Lisa Gastoni Lisa Gastoni (born 28 July 1935) is an Italian film actress. Gastoni was named "Best Italian Actress of the Year, 1966" as she received both the Nastro D'Argento Award and the Golden Globe Award from Italy's Foreign Press Association.} Biograp ...

Eric Pohlmann Eric Pohlmann (german: Erich Pohlmann; born Erich Pollak; 18 July 1913 – 25 July 1979) was an Austrian theatre, film and television character actor who worked mostly in the United Kingdom. He is known for voicing Ernst Stavro Blofeld, th ...

and

Bernard Cribbins Bernard Joseph Cribbins (29 December 1928 – 27 July 2022) was an English actor and singer whose career spanned over seven decades. During the 1960s, Cribbins became known in the UK for his successful novelty records " The Hole in the Groun ...

. The screenplay, which concerns a pilot who tries to rescue a girl from

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

-controlled

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, was based on a story by

Gordon Wellesley Gordon Wong Wellesley (8 December 1894 – 1980) was an Australian-born screenwriter and writer of Chinese descent. Born in Sydney in 1894 He wrote over thirty screenplays in the United States and Britain, often collaborating with the director ...

and made by Swallow Productions and

Hammer Films A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as wi ...

Plot

Don Benton (

), a former World War II combat pilot, now running a travel agency in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, refuses to take political sides and flatly rejects an offer to do espionage work for the United States. When Mao Tai Tai (

Athene Seyler Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 188912 September 1990) was an English actress. Early life She was born in Hackney, London; her German-born grandparents moved to the United Kingdom, where her grandfather Philip Seyler was a merchant in London. Athe ...

), an old Chinese woman who more or less adopted Benton during the war years, asks him to try to find her missing grandson. Knowing that the grandson was piloting a Formosan aircraft that disappeared over mainland China, Benton obtains a passport through a Russian friend, Ivano Kang (

). Flying to the mainland, he rescues the downed pilot. To clear the young man's name, Benton goes to Canton to bring back one of the aircraft passengers, an independent agent, Lola Sanchez (

), who has memorized a vital scientific formula and is willing to sell it to the highest bidder. Kang tries to get the formula from her, but she kills him. Benton hopes to get Lola out of the city, but as they work their way through holiday street crowds, she is fatally wounded by Kang's bodyguard and dies with her secret. Back in Hong Kong, Benton once more turns down an offer to do undercover work for the U.S. government.

Cast

as Don Benton *

as Lola Sanchez *

as Mao Tai Tai *

as Ivano Kang *

Alan Gifford Alan Gifford (born John Lennox; March 11, 1911 – March 20, 1989) was an American-born actor from Taunton, Massachusetts, who worked mainly in the UK, where he died in Blairgowrie, Scotland at age 78. Known best for his role in '' 2001: A ...

as Orme *

as Pereira *

Burt Kwouk Herbert Tsangtse Kwouk, (; ; 18 July 1930 – 24 May 2016) was a British actor, known for his role as Cato in the ''Pink Panther'' films. He made appearances in many television programmes, including a portrayal of Imperial Japanese Army Ma ...

as Jimmy *

Marne Maitland James Marne Kumar Maitland (18 December 1914 – March 1992) was an Anglo-Indian character actor in films and television programmes. Biography Maitland was born in Calcutta, and educated at Bedales School before going up to Magdalene College, ...

as Han Po

Production

Location scenes for ''Passport to China'' were filmed in Hong Kong. Released in Great Britain in Technicolor in December 1960 as ''Visa to Canton'', the film was shown in the US in black-and-white. Although the male lead, Richard Basehart had starred in a number of prestigious feature films in the 1950s, by this point in his career, his prospects had faded.

Reception

Film reviewer Sandra Brennan, described the spy drama as one of a "reluctant hero" who becomes involved in the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

tensions surrounding Communist China. Ultimately, "he refuses to do any more work for American intelligence.""Movie info: 'Visa to Canton' ('Passport to China')."
''Rovi'', 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2019.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Aylesworth, Thomas and John S. Bowman. ''World Guide To Film Stars''. London: Brompton Books, 1991. . * Quinlan, David. ''Quinlan's Film Stars''. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1996. .

External links

* * {{Michael Carreras 1961 films British adventure films 1960s adventure films Columbia Pictures films British aviation films Cold War films Films set in Hong Kong Films shot at Bray Studios Hammer Film Productions films 1960s English-language films 1960s British films