China Sky (film)
| China Sky | |
|---|---|
Original film poster
|
|
| Directed by | Ray Enright |
| Produced by | Jack J. Gross |
| Screenplay by | Joseph Hoffman Brenda Weisberg |
| Based on |
China Sky (novel) by Pearl S. Buck |
| Starring |
Randolph Scott Ruth Warrick Ellen Drew Anthony Quinn |
| Music by | Leigh Harline |
| Cinematography | Nicholas Musuraca |
| Edited by | Marvin Coil Gene Milford |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | RKO Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
78 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
China Sky (aka Pearl Buck's China Sky) is a 1945 RKO Pictures film based on the novel by Pearl S. Buck. It was directed by Ray Enright and featured movie idol Randolph Scott, teamed with Ruth Warrick, Ellen Drew and Anthony Quinn. Although set in wartime China, Quinn and other lead actors portrayed Chinese characters, in keeping with other period films that employed Caucasian actors in oriental roles.
China Sky was one of the last in a succession of wartime films depicting the Chinese confronting Japanese invaders that included: A Yank on the Burma Road (1942), China Girl (1942), Flying Tigers (1942), China (1943), Behind the Rising Sun (1943), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Dragon Seed (1944), God Is My Co-Pilot (1945) and China's Little Devils, released May 27, 1945. Similar to many of the other treatments, Chinese characters in China Sky were in secondary or subservient roles, with the versatile and highly malleable Quinn taking on another nationality, having already played countless other roles as an Indian, Mafia don, Hawaiian chief, Filipino freedom-fighter, French pirate, Spanish bullfighter and Arab sheik.
Dr. Gray Thompson, (Randolph Scott) an American missionary doctor, works alongside Dr. Sara Durand (Ruth Warrick) in a hospital he has built in a small hilltop Chinese village, while Japanese forces descend on China. When Gray returns for a trip, he shocks Sara (who is in love with him) by introducing his new socialite wife, Louise (Ellen Drew). Bored and feeling out of place, Louise tries to persuade him to give up his dangerous cause. In the midst of aerial bombing attacks on the village, Dr. Thompson unselfishly helps the local residents, and especially the insurgent leader Chen-Ta (Anthony Quinn) who loves nurse Siu-Mei (Carol Thurston), betrothed to Dr. Kim (Philip Ahn), a sympathetic Chinese/Korean doctor.
...
Wikipedia