Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film)

A widowed Eurasian doctor Han Suyin (Jones) falls in love with a married-but-separated American correspondent Mark Elliott (Holden) in Hong Kong, during the period of China's Civil War in the late 1940s. Although they find brief happiness together, she is ostracized by the greater Chinese community. After losing her position at the hospital, Suyin and her adopted daughter go to live with a friend while Mark is on an assignment during the Korean War. They write to each other constantly. She receives word that Mark was killed and she goes to visit their favorite hilltop meeting place. In his last letter, which she receives that same day, he reminds her to be grateful, no matter what happens to him, because they got to experience “that many-splendored thing” which many people never do.

File:Jennifer Jones in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing trailer.jpg as Dr. Han Suyin]]

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

The rights to the novel were bought by David Brown of 20th Century Fox for the producer Sol C. Siegel.Epstein. Page 317. However, when he left the company the project was given to Buddy Adler. The screenplay struggled to get Motion Picture Production Code approval because of its themes of adultery and miscegenation.{{AFI film|id=51570}}

Parts of the film were shot on location in Hong Kong by second-unit director Otto Lang, which was unusual for its time. Two weeks of location filming in Hong Kong had been completed before the final screenplay had been finished by screenwriter John Patrick. He then had to adapt the screenplay to include as many of the shots as possible.

Despite the film's romantic subject and their chemistry on the screen, Holden and Jones could barely stand each other on set. Holden was turned off by Jones's obsessive involvement with her character and complaints about her makeup (which she said made her "look old"), about her costumes and about her dialogue. Soon, they were barely speaking to one another. According to Holden's biography, Jones was also generally rude and abrasive to everyone involved in the production.{{cite book|author=Michelangelo Capua|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uMp6ACb74UkC&q=Jennifer+Jones+holden+love+is+a+splendored&pg=PA88|title=William Holden: A Biography|publisher=McFarland|year=2009|pages=87–90|isbn=9780786444403}}

Their relationship was also not helped by Jones's worries about Holden's reputation as a womanizer. Holden claimed that she chewed garlic before her love scenes, which she may have done to discourage him.Epstein. Page 321. Once, Holden tried to make peace, offering Jones a bouquet of white roses, which she tossed back in his face.

The film was completed on time, within the planned three-months schedule. Indonesian director, J. Cabin Joe, made an uncredited role in the film where he appeared along with Holden.{{Sfn|Biran|1979|p=101}}

File:41A Conduit Road Hongkong.jpg, is portrayed in the film as a hospital. The building was demolished in the late 1960s.]]

• The former Mok residence located at 41A Conduit Road became the Foreign Correspondents' Club in 1951. In the film it is portrayed as a hospital. The building is now demolished and Realty Gardens apartment complex has occupied the site since 1970.[http://www.fcchk.org/about-club/history-fcc Foreign Correspondents' Club - History - 41A Conduit Road] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517114847/http://www.fcchk.org/about-club/history-fcc |date=2014-05-17 }}
• The former colonial-style Repulse Bay Hotel, demolished in 1982, and now the site of The Repulse Bay apartment building.{{cite web|url=http://www.therepulsebay.com/ |title=The Repulse Bay's website - History |publisher=Therepulsebay.com |access-date=2013-02-10}}
• The Tai Pak Floating Restaurant, now part of the Jumbo Kingdom.{{cite web |url=http://orientalsweetlips.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/tai-pak-floating-restaurant-aberdeen/ |title=Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff: "Tai Pak Floating Restaurant, Aberdeen |publisher=Orientalsweetlips.wordpress.com |date=2009-09-10 |access-date=2013-02-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121005070525/http://orientalsweetlips.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/tai-pak-floating-restaurant-aberdeen/ |archive-date=2012-10-05 }}
• The famous hill-top meeting place where the lovers used to meet was filmed in rural California at Fox Ranch Malibu, and the backdrop was filmed in Repulse Bay, Hong Kong.

Variety characterized it as "beautiful, absorbing."

The film earned rentals of $4 million in the United States of America and Canada.

In Ireland and the Canadian province of Quebec, local censors did not like the suggestions of divorce and cut the film to make it appear that Holden was single.{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|page=1|date=January 18, 1956|access-date=August 25, 2019|title=Censor Changes Plot|url=http://www.archive.org/stream/variety201-1956-01#page/n598/mode/1up|via=Archive.org}}

• In 2002, the film ranked #85 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions.{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/passions100.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624052654/http://afi.com/Docs/100Years/passions100.pdf |archive-date=June 24, 2016 |access-date=August 20, 2016 |publisher=American Film Institute}}

{{Further|Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (song)}}

The music was commissioned from Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster as background music. It was extensively developed and woven into the film's orchestral score by Alfred Newman and his choral director Ken Darby. To make it eligible for the Best Original Song category of the Academy Awards lyrics were subsequently added. The original lyrics were rejected by the studio so new ones were written.Epstein. Page 322. The resulting sentimental and upbeat song, "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" was one of the first songs written for a movie to reach No. 1 in the charts in the same year.

The song was subsequently recorded by The Four Aces and also by Jerry Vale, Nat King Cole, Danny Williams, 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.

The song's lyrics relate:

{{poemquote|Love is nature's way of giving

a reason to be living,

The golden crown that makes a man a king.}}

During 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:

{{poemquote|Once on a high and windy hill,

In the morning mist, Two lovers kissed,

And the world stood still.}}

The theme song won the Academy Award for Best Song, and the recording by The Four Aces went to #1 on the charts for three weeks in 1955, shortly before rock and roll became a dominant force on the charts. Newman's orchestral score, which made heavy use of Fain's tune, also received an Oscar.

Varèse Sarabande made the complete original soundtrack available on compact disc in 2002, limiting the pressing to 2,000 copies.

• List of American films of 1955
• List of films set in Hong Kong

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book | last = Epstein | first = Edward Z. | title = Portrait of Jennifer Jones | location = New York | publisher = Simon & Schuster | year = 1995 | type = Hardback | isbn = 0-671-74056-3 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/portraitofjennif00epst}}
• {{Cite book

|title=Apa Siapa Orang Film Indonesia 1926–1978

|trans-title=What and Who: Film Figures in Indonesia, 1926–1978

|year=1979

|oclc=6655859

|publisher=Sinematek Indonesia

|editor-last=Biran

|editor-first=Misbach Yusa

}}

{{Commons category|Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (film)}}

• {{IMDb title| id = 0048316 | title = Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|love_is_a_many_splendored_thing}}
• {{tcmdb title|id=81996}}
• {{AFI film|id=51570|title=Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing}}
• Song lyrics (of The Four Aces), webpage: [http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_four_aces/love_is_a_many_splendored_thing.html OldieLyrics-The_Four_Aces].
• [http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/35/3500490.pdf "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]

{{Henry King}}

Category:1955 romantic drama films

Category:1955 films

Category:20th Century Fox films

Category:CinemaScope films

Category:American romantic drama films

Category:Films scored by Alfred Newman

Category:Films about interracial romance

Category:Films about journalists

Category:Films based on Chinese novels

Category:Films directed by Henry King

Category:Films set in 1949

Category:Films set in 1950

Category:Films set in Hong Kong

Category:Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award

Category:Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award

Category:Films that won the Best Original Song Academy Award

Category:Korean War films

Category:Photoplay Awards film of the year winners

Category:1950s English-language films

Category:1950s American films

Category:English-language romantic drama films