Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film)

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
Original film poster
Directed by	Henry King
Produced by	Buddy Adler
Written by	John Patrick Han Suyin book
Starring	William Holden Jennifer Jones
Music by	Alfred Newman Sammy Fain title song
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy, ASC
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release date(s)	August 18, 1955 (1955-08-18)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing is a 1955 American drama-romance film. Set in 1949-50 Hong Kong, it tells the story of a married, but separated, American reporter (played by William Holden), who falls in love with a Eurasian doctor originally from China (played by Jennifer Jones), only to encounter prejudice from her family and from Hong Kong society.

The movie was adapted by John Patrick from the 1952 novel A Many-Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin. The film was directed by Henry King.

The movie later inspired a television soap opera in 1967, though without the hyphen in the show's title.

Plot

The widowed Eurasian doctor Han Suyin (Jones) falls in love with the married-but-separated American correspondent Mark Elliott (Holden) in Hong Kong, during the period of China's Communist Revolution. While they find brief happiness, she is ostracized by her Chinese community. Elliott is killed by an attacking aircraft's bomb as the movie reaches its conclusion. Sujin returns at the end of the film to a scenic hillside where they had courted, comforted by late arriving letters.

Critical reception

Nominated and winning multiple Academy Awards, Variety characterized it as "beautiful, absorbing."

Awards

The film won Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, Color, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best Music, Song (for Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster for "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing"). It was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Jennifer Jones), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Lyle Wheeler, George Davis, Walter M. Scott, Jack Stubbs), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording (Carlton W. Faulkner).

Cast

• William Holden - Mark Elliott
• Jennifer Jones - Dr. Han Suyin
• Torin Thatcher - Humphrey Palmer-Jones
• Isobel Elsom - Adeline Palmer-Jones
• Murray Matheson - Dr. John Keith
• Virginia Gregg - Anne Richards
• Richard Loo - Robert Hung
• Soo Yong - Nora Hung
• Philip Ahn - Third Uncle
• Jorja Curtright - Suzanne
• Donna Martell - Suchen, Suyin's sister

Filming locations

Filming locations in Hong Kong included:

• The building of the Foreign Correspondents' Club, then located at 41A Conduit Road is portrayed as a hospital.
• The former colonial-style Repulse Bay Hotel, demolished in 1982, and now the site of The Repulse Bay apartment building.
• The Tai Pak Floating Restaurant, now part of the Jumbo Kingdom.

Song

The sentimental and upbeat theme song, "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" was one of the first songs written for a movie to become no. 1 in the charts in the same year. Written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, the song was recorded by The Four Aces and also by Jerry Vale, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, among others. Italian-language versions were recorded by Nancy Cuomo, Neil Sedaka, and Connie Francis. Francis also recorded the song with its original English lyrics, and a German language version, Sag, weißt du denn, was Liebe ist.

Here's a sample of the song's lyrics:

Love is nature's way of giving

a reason to be living,

The golden crown that makes a man a king.

In the film, charged romantic moments occur on a high grassy, windswept hill in Hong Kong. In the bittersweet final scene on the hilltop, the song (heard on the sound track) recalls the earlier encounters:

Once on a high and windy hill,

In the morning mist, Two lovers kissed,

And the world stood still.

The theme song, as recorded by The Four Aces, went to #1 on the charts for four weeks in 1955 (in the midst of the rock-and-roll era) and won the Academy Award for Best Song.

See also

• List of films set in Hong Kong

External links

• Love is a Many-Splendored Thing at the Internet Movie Database
• Song lyrics (of The Four Aces), webpage: OldieLyrics-The_Four_Aces.
• "Hong Kong as City/Imaginary in The World of Suzie Wong, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and Chinese Box", by Thomas Y. T. Luk, The Chinese University of Hong Kong