CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

JohnHowardReid A Globe Enterprises Production released by Twentieth Century-Fox. Copyright 1957 by Globe Enterprises Productions. New York opening at the Paramount: 22 May 1957. U.S. release: May 1957. U.K. release: 7 July 1957. Australian release: 1 August 1957. 97 minutes. (Censored to 95 minutes in Australia, cut to 90 minutes in the U.K.)COMMENT: Inserts of newsreel footage tend to lift the believable elements in the plot of this Samuel Fuller production set in Indo- China in 1954, but the plot and its enactment does start to wear somewhat thin as the footage wends its way towards its bitter-sweet climax. Written and directed by Samuel Fuller, this flick lacks the punch necessary to qualify it as exceptional material, but should hold some interest for most viewers. Aside from its unique locale, its most diverting ingredient is Nat "King" Cole, who plays a top role and who also sings the title song.Set as it is in war-ridden Indo-China, the theme is down-beat most of the way. Locations are either war-ravaged villages or jungle outposts through which a Foreign Legion party, guided by a Eurasian saloon owner, makes its way to the China Gate, where it hopes to destroy the main enemy arsenal. Deserted by her husband, Barry, when their baby was born, Miss Dickinson, has become famous throughout Indo-China as "Lucky Legs", the saloon proprietor, and is trusted and popular with both the Reds and the French. In fact, the Foreign Legion commander asks her to guide a party of volunteers through Red lines to the China Gates, where the main bomb and shell dump has been kept carefully hidden in a labyrinth of tunnels that cannot be detected from the air. Miss Dickinson refuses when she learns Barry is among the volunteers, but consents when Marsac promises passage to America for the boy in return for her services. Needless to say, the trek from Son Toy through the lines is dangerous and tedious.Thanks to the involvement offered by the wide CinemaScope screen, this otherwise rather routine war picture, is made reasonably exciting. The players try hard against an often sticky script. The principals are further hampered by their somewhat colorless on- screen personalities. Nonetheless, Angie Dickinson manages to overcome most of the obstacles thrown her way by writer/director Samuel Fuller (whose once really enormous cult following, seems to have diminished somewhat in recent years).

jotix100 The action is set in Viet Nam. The French had been waging an impossible war against the communist Chinese and Vietnamese in a conflict that ended in defeat for France. This is before the American involvement in one of the most hated wars in recent history. Samuel Fuller, who started out as a reporter, saw firsthand what war was really like early in his life during WWII. After that, he became a writer for the movies and a director who, to this day, has inspired many of the current crop of creators with his sharp take on the world he lived. "China Gate", alas, does not add anything to his illustrious career, although no serious fan of Mr. Fuller will pass the opportunity to take a look at this 1957 film. The story centers around a conflict between a Eurasian born woman, Lucky Legs, the owner of a saloon that had married Johnny Brock, an American mercenary who is helping the French in their fight against their enemy as the story begins. Brock was a bigot, to put it mildly, and a man that obviously was not playing with a full deck. He abandoned Lucky after their son is born. He rejected the infant based on his Chinese looks. Lucky is recruited to guide a small team of men to the China Gate, where the communists have amassed war material that will help them fight the war. Lucky, being well known to her countrymen, had no trouble taking the patrol to their destination, leaving at each post bottles of her prized stash of French cognac, much appreciated by the fighting enemy.Unfortunately, the story does not ring true; it is sadly dated as it does not make much sense. The mere idea of outsmarting the guerrillas, by a small group of men just does not seem possible, but then again, this is the basis of many pictures where common sense does not count into the story, what matters is the action, the dead, the fabulous explosions and the heroism of a few.Gene Barry playing Brock shows no chemistry whatsoever with his co-star, Angie Dickinson, at the height of her youth and beauty. Nat King Cole, the inimitable singer makes a dramatic appearance and he steals the movie from more experienced actors. Lee Van Cleef shows up as Cham, the man who was also in love with Lucky. For Samuel Fuller fans only!

rcj5365 Sam Fuller's worst war film is worth watching-or at least scanning-for several reasons. The most obvious is the bizarre casting. Then there is the unpersuasive attempt to recreate Vietnam on a studio backlot,which would be duplicated with not much more success years later by Stanley Kubrick in Full Metal Jacket(1987). Finally,both the screw loose plotting and the rabid Red-baiting have become unintentionally comic with the passage of time. This was in fact Sam Fuller's first-ever film for a major Hollywood studio(Twentieth Century-Fox)and his first to be presented in full widescreen Cinemascope.A voice-over introduction sets a hyperbolic tone: "With the end of the Korean War,France was left alone to hold the hottest front in the world and became the barrier between Communism and the rape of Asia." Moments later,we learn that because the dirty Reds have put the Vietnamese town of Sun Toy under siege,a little boy's(Warren Hsieh)pet puppy is about to be eaten! Presumably because 1957,American audiences did not know much about the country or the war,Fuller spends most of the first act spinning out a fanciful interpretation of the situation,blaming many of the country's problems on the Chinese Communists and their massive underground ammunition bunker at China Gate. The French Legionaires decide it to blow it up,and call in explosives expert Sgt. Brock(Gene Barry). The only person who can lead them from Sun Toy to China Gate is Lucky Legs(Angie Dickinson in one of her first major roles),who is allegedly half-Chinese. She's also Brock's ex,and if that weren't enough,the kid with the puppy is their son! That's doubly hard to believe because the stars generate all the sexual chemistry of two wet paper towels. Not to mention in 1957,white actors or actresses were playing roles of minorities,whether Latino or Asian or Arabian were stereotypical then.After that's been established,the already pokey action stops cold for Goldie(Nat "King" Cole) to not only demonstrate his acting abilities but also sings the theme song. Then off they go,with a half dozen or so more Legionaires and a couple of boxes of highly explosive detonators. At every opportunity.one or more of these guys bears his tortured soul,and as they get closer to the Chicorns,it becomes apparent that our girl Lucky has been a sort of one-woman welcoming committee whose mission is to boost morale in every way that she can. All the guys know her because she makes regular visits to the Chinese to deliver cognac and sex,even though her main squeeze is the commander of China Gate,Maj. Cham(Lee Van Cleef),yet another half-Chinese who is in line for a promotion to Moscow.With only a few exceptions,the combat scenes are as phony as the rest. They were filmed on cheap-looking sets with little originality or energy. Nothing on screen comes as close to Fuller's better work in "The Steel Helmet",and "The Big Red One". Still,"China Gate" is instructive. It's a perfect example of Hollywood's attempt to turn every post-war conflict into another World War II. When the film does try to draw any distinctions,it still reduces the action to good guys versus bad guys. If a few Americans will just go over there and blow up stuff and shoot some guys,those benighted foreigners will see the error of their ways and everything will straighten itself out. That's a bit of oversimplification,but given the loopy politics of China Gate,it's not too far off the mark. It misses it.

MisterWhiplash Samuel Fuller's China Gate isn't one to rush out to rent, but if you're already a fan of the director's it's a safe bet that most of his work will be at least brawny and entertaining, and even in the midst of heavy melodrama he can pack a bit of punch in the midst of the studio-set conventions. Make no mistake, this is a studio picture through and through, down to the studio locations (how much of it really is a jungle one might wonder, which isn't much), and the mix and match of real war-torn cityscapes ala Rossellini with stock footage of planes dropping supplies for the citizens. The only overall disappointing aspect is the slightly off ratio of powerful action and tough dialog- there's a little too much of the latter, and not as one of Fuller's most spot-on scripts in trying to wring out the unsentimental emotion, which backfires- as it's almost a minor work when compared to the real big guns, no pun intended, with respect to Fuller's war films. China Gate is simple melodrama, but when it does stick simply, and with Fuller's stylistic strengths and flashes of bravado, it works.One of the pleasantries of the picture is seeing the actors take to the roles, in typical Fullerian mode, as if it was all heart. Angie Dickinson, in one of her first performances, is a hot little number that has just the right, well, 'something' to keep her along with the other male parts, as she plays a hard-bitten mother named 'Lucky Legs' who is the only one who has the right contacts and repore with the Ho Chi-Mon that she can get a small military team through enemy lines. Her strengths are poised against Gene Barry, her once husband (still technically is, thanks to a lovey-dovey scene in the latter part of the movie), who is a bigot and seems to have had all sympathy for most people drained away. He does, however, gain it back by the time the big climax comes, which maybe isn't too far of a stretch considering the many scenes where he and Lucky Legs get a little more intimate (as close as possible during the 'code' anyway). The good news is Fuller cast them very well for their chemistry on screen, as they are totally opposed at first, and then gradually get closer and closer, her beauty with his scruffy face, each hard-bitten by times spent in war and communist locales.Meanwhile, Fuller's got a wild card with Nat King Cole, who not only wonderfully sings an unusually placed song (right before all the men head out on their mission through the Vietnam jungle) but is an unexpectedly touching actor. He goes through some subtle looks at times when asked too many questions from a fellow German soldier in the group, is cool and dead-pan when having to face Sgt. Brock, and plays it perfectly when he is in possible enemy fire range and steps on a spike in the ground, keeping himself mute with his face totally in horror. There's also a good scene with a man who gets wounded on a rocky ridge, with his last minutes not stepping into platitudes but simply allowing a sort of quietly sad cross-cutting between the others looking down at the poor solider seen in a painful close-up. Although there's a fairly bad scene with a French foreign legion guy (I think foreign legion) who tells a story accompanied by a sound effect of a whistle, and the dialog between the men in the less plot-dense scenes is just average Fuller, it's great to see a part for Lee Van Cleef as the heel with all the bombs and explosives in the cave, and the climax is a good, if not astounding, wallop.An obscure early dip into what would become the most insane debacle of Westerners fighting the 'other' halfway across the world (as of then), China Gate is usually exciting and tightly executed, and if it doesn't have the same pulp attitude that Fuller has when he's working full throttle, it never-the-less attains a quality that speaks of the BANG of a headline, telling the story all in one bold swoop, however easy to tell.