Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3108572/making-world-suzie-wong-finding-leading-lady Short Reads
The making of The World of Suzie Wong, from finding the leading lady to filming in Wan Chai
- Nancy Kwan was brought in after the first choice for Suzie, France Nuyen, dropped out
- Despite the film’s iconic status, it received mixed reviews, with one report calling it ‘unauthentic’
Nancy Kwan stars in The World of Suzie Wong. Photo: Handout
“Talent Scouts are due to arrive in Hongkong on August 15 from Hollywood to look for a leading lady to act in The World of Suzie Wong ,” reported the South China Morning Post on August 7, 1959. “Applicants for ‘Suzie’ must be between 18 and 22 years of age, and five feet five inches tall. They must look ‘innocent but vivacious’, with an interesting and magnetic attraction,” reported the Post on August 16.
After meeting more than 100 hopefuls in Hong Kong, the search went on to Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines before French-Chinese actor France Nuyen, who played Suzie on Broadway, was chosen for the role.
Filming began in Hong Kong in January 1960 but was disrupted when Nuyen was hospitalised. On February 6, the Post reported that she had “dropped out of the picture” and the search for Suzie was back on. London-based, Hong Kong-born ballerina Nancy Kwan Ka-shen was announced as Nuyen’s replacement on February 15, having met the producers the previous summer.
“I never gave up hope of playing Suzie because a Kowloon fortune-teller said I would,” Kwan told the Post, which described her as “daintily lovely in the Oriental manner”. Kwan arrived in Hong Kong on May 6 to “cameras, confusion and clamouring crowds”. “She said her most urgent wish during the two weeks she will be filming here is to eat huge quantities of chow fan and mangoes.”
Shooting wrapped up on May 20 “in the real-life ‘World of Suzie Wong’ – the Wanchai bar-room district”.
The film was released in the United States on November 10 to mixed reviews. The New York Daily News wrote that the best thing about it was “the fascinating city of Hongkong”. The New York Times found it “the glowingest commercial for love conquering everything, including the taint of prostitution”, while the New York Herald Tribune called it “unauthentic”.
It opened in Hong Kong in August 1961. A Post review described Kwan as “deliciously provocative and often touching” but criticised the film for moving “too slowly”.