Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) on Netflix
Approved19551h 42mBiographyDramaRomance
Han Suyin, a widowed Eurasian doctor in Hong Kong, falls in love with Mark Elliott, an American correspondent who is married but separated. Her family and the city's society object.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.4/105,936 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes53%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Hong Kong, Han Suyin works as a doctor. She is a widow of Chinese and European descent, originally from China, and has an adopted daughter. Mark Elliott is an American correspondent in the city, married but separated from his wife. The two fall in love during China's Civil War in the late 1940s. Her family and much of Hong Kong society object to the relationship.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- William Holden and Jennifer Jones could barely stand each other while making the film. Holden was put off by Jones's obsessive involvement with her character and her complaints that her makeup made her look old, and the two soon stopped speaking.
- Irish and Quebec censors disliked the film's suggestions of divorce and cut it so that William Holden's character would appear to be single.
- The screenplay of the film struggled to win Motion Picture Production Code approval because of its themes of adultery and miscegenation.
- Lyrics were added to the film's background music only to make it eligible for the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards; the studio rejected the first lyrics and had new ones written.
- The theme song won the Academy Award for Best Song, and The Four Aces' recording of it went to number one for three weeks in 1955, shortly before rock and roll became a dominant force on the charts.
- The former Mok residence at 41A Conduit Road, which appears in the film as a hospital, became the Foreign Correspondents' Club in 1951; the building was demolished and Realty Gardens has occupied the site since 1970.
- The lovers' famous hilltop meeting place was filmed in rural California at Fox Ranch Malibu, with the backdrop shot at Repulse Bay in Hong Kong.
- Two weeks of location shooting in Hong Kong were finished before John Patrick had completed the screenplay, forcing him to rework the script to fit as many of the shots as possible.
