When Richard Brooks and Peter O’Toole were in Hong Kong to film Lord Jim

“Peter O’Toole, who plays the role of ‘Lord Jim’ in Richard Brooks’ latest production, arrived from Bangkok by BOAC yesterday for a six-week filming,” reported the South China Morning Post on December 7, 1963. “Jack Hawkins, who appears in the film as ‘Marlow’, Joseph Conrad’s famous narrator, also came in on the same flight,” the story continued.

Shooting of the film adaptation of Conrad’s novel Lord Jim (1900) was expected to take six weeks, with much of it “on the Colony’s seafronts and harbour”. In one scene, “the officers of a small shabby freighter were hustling on board a motley collection of passengers […]”

“These were the Moslem pilgrims boarding the SS Patna for their ill-fated trip,” reported the Post on December 11, and they were played by “Hongkong Chinese extras who had been contentedly sitting on their bunkers in the sunshine for most of the day”.

On December 15, filming moved to the Supreme Court building, where “Members of the Fire Service were standing by to supply the salt-water ‘rain’ needed for the scene”.

“When all was basically ready the principals arrived – Richard Brooks, director (more bronzed than ever after two days’ shooting out at sea) who invariably substantiated his reputation for having everything under calm control.”

According to the Post, O’Toole seemed “tensely preoccupied”. “Away from the camera Peter O’Toole was wearing dark glasses to rest his eyes from the strong sunlight and wind of the previous days’ life-boat scenes. He confessed to having found these rather gruelling although his friends scoffed at the idea after his months on a camel in the desert as Lawrence of Arabia.”