Satan Never Sleeps
Starring: William Holden, France Nuyen, Clifton Webb
Director: Leo McCarey
The film: In early 1960, William Holden and French-Vietnamese actress France Nuyen (The Joy Luck Club, Star Trek) came to Hong Kong to shoot the exterior scenes for The World of Suzie Wong. On their return to London to film the interiors, Nuyen lost the title role - which she had played on Broadway in the stage version - to Nancy Kwan, reportedly because she had gained too much weight.
To make up for the disappointment, Holden two years later persuaded producer/director Leo McCarey to cast Nuyen as his love interest in Satan Never Sleeps. The results, while mixed, offer an interesting glimpse of what might have been had she stayed in shape.
Set in China but filmed largely on the same set in Wales that had been used a few years earlier for the Ingrid Bergman film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Satan Never Sleeps was based on the novel of that name by Pearl S. Buck (Dragon Seed, The Good Earth).