China Gate

China Gate is a 1957 American CinemaScope war film written, produced and directed by Samuel Fuller and released through 20th Century Fox. The film is set during the First Indochina War (1946–1954), and depicts the relationship between a sergeant of the French Foreign Legion and the Eurasian wife whom he had abandoned. Plot Sergeant Brock (Gene Barry) and Goldie (Nat King Cole) are American Korean War veterans now serving as French Foreign Legion mercenaries in the First Indochina War. Brock's wife is a "half caste" Chinese-European named "Lucky Legs" (Angie Dickinson) who resorts to smuggling to feed her five-year-old son she had with Brock. Brock abandoned her and the baby when he was born with Asian features, feeling a "half breed" would not be welcome in America; an attitude towards miscegenation prevalent at the time. Lucky is recruited by the French high command to use her expertise of the area and her connection to the communist Major Cham (Lee Van Cleef) to get a demolition squad of Legionnaires led by Brock to a vital hidden Viet Minh ammunition dump on the border with Red China. In return for her services, Lucky is promised by the French that they will arrange for her five-year-old son's emigration to America. The raid is filled with animosity between the former lovers, booby traps, and enemy patrols. On arrival at the ammunition dump hidden in a mountain, Lucky discovers the commanding officer is her former friend, Major Cham, who wants to take her and her son to a new life in Moscow. Cham is a high flyer corporate executive (in the manner of Fuller's gangsters in Underworld USA) marked for great things in the world of international communism. The sabotage mission is successful but at great cost, as Lucky dies blowing up the dump. Brock reconciles with his child and is last seen walking along holding his hand in preparation for returning to America, as Goldie reprises the title song. Production Fuller selected singer Cole after being impressed with his face on a record album cover. Though Darryl F. Zanuck said Cole received more money in a few weeks than the entire budget of the film, Fuller arranged to meet Cole. Cole and his wife were interested in Goldie as an opposite to the racist Brock and agreed to work at a minimum salary.