High Road to China (1983)

Director:

Brian G. Hutton

Writers:

Jon Cleary (novel)
S. Lee Pogostin (writer)

Release Date:

21 April 1983 (Australia)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Romance | War

Tagline:

Tom Selleck takes you on a high adventure!

Plot:

A biplane pilot is saddled with a spoiled industrialist's daughter on a search for her missing father...

Plot Keywords:

Warlord | Missing Father | Pilot | WWI | Castle

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Tom Selleck	...	Patrick O' Malley
Bess Armstrong	...	Eve 'Evie' Tozer
Jack Weston	...	Struts
Wilford Brimley	...	Bradley Tozer
Robert Morley	...	Bentik
Brian Blessed	...	Suleman Khan
Cassandra Gava	...	Alessa
Michael Sheard	...	Charlie Shane
Lynda La Plante	...	Lina (as Lynda Marchal)
Timothy Carlton	...	Officer
Shayur Mehta	...	Ahmed
Terry Richards	...	Ginger
Jeremy Child	...	Johnny Silversmith, British Officer
Peter Llewellyn Williams	...	Franjten Khan
Dino Shafeek	...	Satvinda (as Dino Shaffer)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA | Yugoslavia

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

England, UK

Company:

City Films

Trivia:

The machine guns on Dorothy and Lillian are Lewis Automatic Machine Rifles, chambered in .303 British caliber. Although the weapon was invented by an American Army captain, it was adopted by almost every other Allied army in WW1 prior to being adopted by the US in 1917. The guns were inexpensive and reliable, explaining why O'Malley could afford a pair.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the climactic battle scene, a number of the Chinese peasants can be seen using Mauser 98k rifles, a variant of the 1898 Mauser which wasn't introduced until 1935, at least a decade after this film is set.

Quotes:

Patrick O' Malley: You wrecked my plane!
Eve "Evie" Tozer: It was always a wreck!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Psych: Daredevils! (#3.3)" (2008)

Underrated Gem of a Movie

Today, when I bought a consumer DVD recorder, and went through a stack of 300+ laserdiscs to dub some not-available-on-DVD-yet films for a very long flight to London tomorrow, this was the second disc I dubbed (Grand Prix was the first) and realized just how perfect a movie this remains, even after 20 years. First off, the John Barry score is first-rate; as someone else mentioned, the master took the easy way out and simply revised it for Out of Africa a few years later (and it works as well there as it does here).

I'm not sure what defines screen chemistry, but Selleck and Armstrong (one of my all-time favorite actresses) have it here. While there is conflict between their characters, it seems apparent to me that they are having a good time acting out this tightly scripted adventure/fantasy. The underlying sexual tension (again as someone else noted there's zero nudity here) between the two is palpable.

The aerial sequences stand up well over time; certainly better than the computer-generated crap that looks so fake (like Pearl Harbor) that passes for special effects today, will look in 2020.

While image quality of the laserdisc is certainly better than VHS, it falls short of what we've come to expect today, 10 years into the DVD era. Why this film hasn't made it into the 5-inch medium, with a cleaned up Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack (to better showcase the John Barry score), is beyond me.

When one sees the utter dreck that is released today, scraping the bottom of the film vault barrel, it amazes me to wonder why this neglected gem sits in a vault somewhere. As there are no true A-list stars in this film filled with wonderful performances, why Warner Brothers, has this not been given a full bore DVD release? I wonder if it's available in some market outside of North America.

Clocking-in at a bit less than two hours, this is a movie in the mold of similar films produced in the immediate post-WWII era. I think that when I watch it on the plane Sunday, I might even watch it in black and white.

A great reason to keep you laserdisc player, watch auctions on eBay for this to pop up on LD and to buy a DVD recorder as this is a movie you can watch over and over and enjoy it each time.

Shame on you Warner Brothers for not putting it out on DVD.