Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- Soldier of Fortune, 1955. A wife's journalist husband who was just imprisoned behind the red Chinese curtain goes to Hong Kong to get an adventurer to help her in her task to find the husband and to get him back.*Special Stars- Clark Cable, Susan Hayward, Michael Rennie, Gene Barry.*Theme- Persistance is the key to success.*Trivia/location/goofs- Shoot at 20th century Fox studios and Hong Kong. Ms. Hayward was under court order to not leave the US due to a pending divorce matter.*Emotion- This film was enjoyable to watch, but the story seems very stilted due to the lack of character development of the supporting cast's roles.*Based On- A best seller and the Cold War era.

mrsmagloo Jane Hoyt (Susan Hayward, graceful and stunning, but tough as nails, as always), arrives in Hong Kong, intent on finding her husband, photojournalist Louis Hoyt (Gene Barry), who went missing in Communist China (where is Bill Clinton when you need him? ;) several months before. Back then, the British Empire owned Hong Kong, so she must go through them (in the form of a dashing Michael Rennie), but gets few leads, except for the name of a Mr. Lee, whom Rennie has few good words for.Thanks to deft editing, solid acting throughout, and beautiful photography, the flick moves quickly, taking us to seedy Tweedy's bar, the streets of Hong Kong, and ultimately to the luxurious home of the mysterious Mr. Lee (Cable) himself. Clark seems a tad old for the part, but is in great shape physically, and moves quickly and gracefully through all the action scenes. There is plenty of comic relief in the scenes at Tweedy's bar. Look for a stand-out performance by Anna Sten as Madame Dupree as Tweedy's "starving spy" who finds true love.If you like "Love is a Many-Slendored Thing," you will like this movie, although people with strict morals about marriage may raise any eyebrow or two throughout the course of the movie, even for one made in 1955!

MARIO GAUCI This typically glossy Fox production from the 1950s, hinging on equal parts star power and exotic locations, was another title I had missed out on several times along the years; after its recent SE DVD release, I made it a point to catch up with the film next time around.Anyway, for an adventure film, it's rather talky and, even if just 96 minutes long, it devotes too much attention to irrelevant subplots involving secondary characters (including gruff bar owner Tom Tully and a comeback role for former Swedish star Anna Sten) to the ultimate detriment of major ones: in fact, Susan Hayward – who gets to interact with most of the cast – is given more screen-time than Clark Gable (which is even more surprising when one remembers that this was Gable's first non-MGM film in 20 years!) and, in spite of their billing, both Michael Rennie and Gene Barry don't have a lot to do until the climax (though, in the latter's case, it's understandable as he's a prisoner in the hands of Communist China).With respect to the narrative itself (Ernest K. Gann adapted his own novel for the screen), the film seems to fall between several stools – action, romance, politics – but, with its eye firmly on the box-office, this superficial and sometimes contrived approach ends up satisfying no one. That said, it's a generally entertaining ride – and Dmytryk handles the proceedings in an efficient, if highly impersonal, manner.In the end, I'd say that SOLDIER OF FORTUNE is the least of the 3 Fox titles released as part of the rather expensive "The Clark Gable Collection" – the others being William Wellman's THE CALL OF THE WILD (1935) and Raoul Walsh's THE TALL MEN (1955; disappointingly, this is the only one not to feature an accompanying Audio Commentary).

Greg Couture This is one of those early Twentieth Century Fox CinemaScope potboilers where the studio sent (most of) the cast and crew to actual locations and took full DeLuxe Color advantage of places that most of the potential audience would never visit in real life. So, the bustling and already festooned-with-highrises city of Hong Kong is the principal setting for the jumping-off point of the plot. It's pretty obvious that Gable is actually there in Hong Kong for a few of the shots but Susan Hayward, embroiled in a custody battle after her divorce from Lex Barker, didn't dare leave the U.S., or her chances of caring for her children by that marriage might have been scotched. Therefore long shots and a few medium ones of her were cleverly arranged with a double and she performs all of her closeups, et cetera, safely ensconced on the Fox soundstages in West Los Angeles and against some rather good back projections.Gable and Hayward are a pretty good team and Michael Rennie lends his usual elegant support. Gene Barry has a rather thankless role as Susan's eventually rejected husband, and the supporting cast, including the Asians appearing as various Chinese, are all convincing under Edward Dmytryk's workmanlike direction.For me the real stars, however, are Leo Tover's excellent use of the CinemaScope lenses and, once again, Hugo Friedhofer's atmospheric score. In my opinion, no other Hollywood master of the full orchestral enhancement was able to cue the audience and call up some real emotion with so few bars of music. This film is a sterling example of his art. Just check out the closing few moments of the film. He could send you out of the theater convinced you'd seen something even better than what you had actually viewed!