- China Doll (film)
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China Doll Directed by Frank Borzage Produced by Frank Borzage Written by Kitty Buhler
Thomas F. Kelly (story)
James Benson Nablo (story)Starring Victor Mature
Li Hua LiStudio Batjac Productions
Romina ProductionsDistributed by United Artists (US) Release date(s) June 8, 1958 (UK)
December 3, 1958 (US)Running time 99 minutes Country United States Language English China Doll is a 1958 romantic drama film set in the China Burma India Theater of World War II and starring Victor Mature and Li Hua Li.
Plot
In 1943, Captain Cliff Brandon (Victor Mature) is a cargo aircraft pilot supplying the Allied troops fighting the Japanese in China. When he is not flying or training his new crew hard, he is usually drinking in the local bar.
One night, while stumbling home drunk, he encounters an old Chinese man who offers him a girl, his daughter Shu-Jen (Li Hua Li). Brandon pays him, but when he sees the young woman, he tells the old man to keep her. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds Shu-Jen there. After Father Cairns (Ward Bond), a longtime resident of China, expresses his disapproval, Brandon tries his best to get rid of her, assigning the task to Ellington, a young Chinese boy who speaks English well. Ellington tries to sell her into prostitution, but Father Cairns happens by and takes Shu-Jen back to Brandon.
The priest finds out that Shu-Jen's father was a farmer, but he lost his land to the Japanese invaders. Destitute, he sold his daughter's services for three months to feed the rest of his large family. Cairns tells Brandon that, if he were to send the girl back, the old man would return the desperately needed money. So, over Brandon's protests, the priest gets him to keep the girl; Brandon tells her that she is there only as a housekeeper. He makes Ellington his live-in interpreter.
Over time, however, love blooms, and Shu-Jen becomes pregnant. They get married in a traditional Chinese ceremony. After he is transferred to another base, she gives birth to their daughter. Later, they are reunited.
While Brandon is flying a mission, the base is attacked. The returning flight is ordered to divert to a different airfield, but Brandon disobeys and lands his airplane. When he cannot locate his family, he orders his crew to leave with the survivors. Then he finds Shu-Jen and Ellington both dead, but his daughter is alive. He puts his dog tag around her neck, then mans an anti-aircraft gun and shoots down one or two enemy aircraft before he is killed.
In 1957, his former crewmates and their wives anxiously await the arrival in the United States of Brandon's daughter, found in an orphanage by Father Cairns, still with her father's dog tag.
Cast
- Victor Mature as Capt. Cliff Brandon
- Li Hua Li as Shu-Jen
- Ward Bond as Father Cairns
- Bob Mathias as Capt. Phil Gates
- Johnny Desmond as Sgt. Steve Hill
- Stuart Whitman as Lt. Dan O'Neill, Navigator (as Stu Whitman)
- Elaine Devry as Alice Nichols (as Elaine Curtis)
- Ann McCrea as Mona Perkins
- Danny Chang as Ellington
- Denver Pyle as Col. Wiley, Brandon's commanding officer
- Don "Red" Barry as MSgt. Hal Foster
- Tige Andrews as Cpl. Carlo Menotti
- Steve Mitchell as Dave Reisner
- Ken Perry as Sgt. Ernie Fleming
- Ann Paige as Sally
- Gregg Barton as Airman
- Bill White, Jr. as Forsyth, Flying Tiger
External links
- China Doll at the Internet Movie Database
- China Doll at the TCM Movie Database
- China Doll at AllRovi
The films of Frank Borzage 1910s The Pride and the Man • Dollars of Dross • Land o' Lizards • Immediate Lee • Flying Colors • Until They Get Me • The Gun Woman • The Curse of Iku • The Shoes That Danced • Innocent's Progress • Society for Sale • An Honest Man • Who Is to Blame? • The Ghost Flower • The Atom • Toton the Apache • Whom the Gods Would Destroy • Prudence on Broadway1920s Humoresque • The Duke of Chimney Butte • Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford • Back Pay • Billy Jim • The Good Provider • The Valley of Silent Men • The Pride of Palomar • The Nth Commandment • Children of the Dust • The Age of Desire • Secrets • The Lady • Daddy's Gone A-Hunting • The Circle • Lazybones • Wages for Wives • The First Year • The Dixie Merchant • Early to Wed • Marriage License? • Seventh Heaven • Street Angel • Lucky Star • They Had to See Paris • The River1930s Song o' My Heart • Liliom • Doctors' Wives • Young as You Feel • Bad Girl • After Tomorrow • Young America • A Farewell to Arms • Secrets • Man's Castle • No Greater Glory • Little Man, What Now? • Flirtation Walk • Living on Velvet • Stranded • Shipmates Forever • Desire • Hearts Divided • Green Light • History Is Made at Night • Big City • Mannequin • Three Comrades • The Shining Hour • Disputed Passage1940s Strange Cargo • The Mortal Storm • Flight Command • Smilin' Through • The Vanishing Virginian • Seven Sweethearts • Stage Door Canteen • His Butler's Sister • Till We Meet Again • The Spanish Main • Magnificent Doll • I've Always Loved You • That's My Man • Moonrise1950s China Doll • The Big FishermanTelevision Screen Directors Playhouse (1955–1956)Categories:- English-language films
- American films
- American romantic drama films
- Black-and-white films
- Films directed by Frank Borzage
- Second Sino-Japanese War films
- World War II air force films
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