China Gate (1957)

China Gate (Samuel Fuller, 1957) "...still fighting for her life, 100 miles from the China Gate is the dying village of San Toi, the last hold-out in the North. Her supplies have been ambushed, her ammunition depleted. But she fights, as she starves. Her only chance for survival is the American food air-drop from the South. The year, 1954. The day, Thursday. The time, 10 o'clock in the morning. All animals have been eaten. All but one." 

That one animal is a dog in the care of a small, semi-cross-eyed boy (William Hsieh), clever enough to avoid the citizens who might want to make a meal of the puppy. He probably gets it from his mother, Lia (Angie Dickinson, improbably), also known as "Lucky Legs", who has made an existence out of the rubble running a bar in VietNam—"Lucky's Bar," ironically, given the circumstances of French occupation and attacks from communist forces in the North and from China—and distributing liquor, mostly cognac, among the troops on both sides. 

But, "Lucky" wants out. She wants a better life for herself, but, most especially, for her boy. It's why, when approached by French Legionnaires under Col. De Sars (Maurice Marsac) for a tough job—to take mercenaries on her floating delivery system up the river to the communist headquarters at the China Gate with the intention of blowing up their ammo dump embedded in the tunnels. For this, they offer her $5,000 and a new bar, but "Lucky" changes the terms. She'll do it if the French guarantees the boy's passage to America.

She's skeptical, of course; it's a dangerous mission and the China Gate is overseen by a Major Cham (Lee Van Cleef), who is in love with "Lucky." But, there's an added down-side—one that makes her refuse the job—the munitions expert charged with blowing up the stockpile is Sergeant John Brock (Gene Barry), "Lucky's" former husband and father of her child. He walked out on her when the boy was born, ashamed that the child looked so "asian." Brock appeals to Father Paul (the wonderful Marcel Dalio of Le Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game...and Casablanca and To Have and Have Not and Catch-22 and so many others), who offers no assistance, blaming Brock for "Lucky's" falling on hard times after his rejection.

Brock must "man up" and appeal to "Lucky" to put aside her animosity towards him and take on the mission, if only for the child's sake. She relents and she joins the motley crew of mercenaries: French Captain Caumont (Paul Dubov); Brock and Goldie (Nat "King" Cole, who also sings the title song by Harold Adamson and Victor Young—his last score, completed by "his old friend" Max Steiner), both Korean War vets; Private Jaszi (Sasha Harden), a Czech anti-communist suffering from PTSD; Pvt. Andreadas (Gerald Milton) a Greek freedom fighter; and a combination of French and Vietnamese troops—including Charlie (the seemingly immortal James Hong).

The friction between Brock and "Lucky" is all too obvious to the band, leading to some division in the ranks—Goldie, in particular, resents Brock, despite their history together, as Goldie and his wife could never have kids and Brock's rejection of his own child due to racism and his treatment of "Lucky" is particularly galling. On the practical side, Brock divides up the primers for their explosives between the two of them, should something happen to him along the way.

There's plenty that goes wrong, with Jaszi's nightmares, night-time firefights and mined roads, while Brock struggles with his feelings and "Lucky" struggles with the duties of distracting the guards, while around her, men are dying and Brock is unrelenting—he still has feelings for her, but, with so much going around, his focus must be on the mission. He doesn't give himself a chance for thinking about the future. Goldie steps up and vows to "Lucky" that he will get her son back to the United States.

The tenor of things change when "Lucky" gets to the China Gate. She finds Cham there and he tells her that he loves her and will be happy to take her and her son to Moscow when his position there is done. She reminds Cham that he once hated the Communists and war, but he counters that, now that he has some power and a future with the Communists, things have changed. He shows her the ammo dump, housed in one of the tunnels and vows to take him with her to Moscow once victory is secured.

She reports back to Brock that she knows where the cache of explosives is, and finds that he's had a change of heart—he will take her and her son to the U.S. once the mission is over. Plans are made to infiltrate the tunnels and destroy them once darkness falls. All "Lucky" has to do is distract the guards, giving Brock and the men enough to plant the charges.

Fuller has always been one to chase the headlines, given his reporter background, and just as he made the first Korean war film at the time of the conflict, he anticipated the struggles in Vietnam before the U.S. became engaged. Filmed in Cinemascope and returning to black and white (color might have been fine for something like The House of Bamboo and its exoticism, but for the war-torn Vietnam and the preponderance of night-scenes, monochrome is far more dramatic), he also tackles the subject of race and prejudice—as he would again in later films—while it still simmered in the background of public consciousness.

He gets uniformly good performances out of all involved—even Barry and Dickinson seem to rise above the melodrama—but Fuller took a chance on noted recording artist Cole and was rewarded with a completely lived-in performance devoid of theatricality, but much depth, a risk given his role as the "conscience" of the film.

This would be the last film Fuller would direct for 20th Century Fox. His next, a Western called Run of the Arrow was filmed for RKO, but so impressed Universal that they picked it up for distribution. Fuller would continue his career as an independent film-maker.