High Road to China (1983) A Boy’s Own Adventure

There’s an alternate universe where Harrison Ford’s single biggest (or only) franchise role is that of Han Solo in the Star Wars series, and that’s because the role of Indiana Jones went to first choice, Tom Selleck. In our universe (or, reality, as some might say), Selleck had to pass on Raiders of the Lost Ark because of scheduling conflicts with his hugely popular TV series, Magnum, P.I. However, even in reality, we have been afforded the opportunity to see what Selleck might have looked like as an early twentieth century globe-trotting American adventurer, thanks to his starring role in 1983’s High Road to China, which comes to Blu-ray on the delightful Toy Robot label this week.

Rumour has it that Seleck was gifted the role of wisecracking tough flying ace O’Malley as a consolation prize for missing out on Indy, and it’s true to say that High Road to China belongs to that pantheon of films that came out in the wake of Raiders, looking to cash in on its popularity; see also Romancing the Stone, Sky Pirates, King Solomon’s Mines, Sahara, Firewalker and Jake Speed. But it’s equally true to say that the film, based on a 1977 novel by Australian author Jon Cleary, belongs to that subgenre of action movie that we might call Boy’s Own adventure, examples of which stretch back throughout cinema history and actually influenced George Lucas when it came to the creation of his whip-cracking, wise-cracking hero.

Set in the roaring twenties, a time of international diplomatic turbulence, High Road to China tells the story of society heiress Eve Tozer (Bess Armstrong). She’s living the high life of a flapper in Istanbul when she’s informed that her eccentric industrialist father’s whereabouts are presently unknown and that she risks losing her inheritance to his scheming business partner if he’s declared dead within the next twelve days. Determined to chase a lead that her missing dad is somewhere in China, Eve hires O’Malley (Selleck), a washed-up former WWI flying ace with a fondness for the bottle to take her on across six countries from Istanbul to China, navigating a series of hair-raising and death-defying adventures along the way.

Interestingly, the origins of High Road to China as a movie actually predates that of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When Cleary published his novel in 1977, the rights were almost immediately snapped up by Hollywood. In its initial development, the film saw no less than John Huston attached to direct, with Jacqueline Bisset and the then James Bond himself, Roger Moore, set to star. This is, to my mind, a really attractive proposition, especially as Moore had already made a similar kind of movie as this, 1976’s Shout at the Devil, during one of his sojourns from being on her majesty’s secret service. Somewhere along the way, both the legendary director and Bisset dropped out, replaced by Bo Derek and Sidney J. Furie. When Derek dropped out, seemingly only interested in the project if her Svengali husband John Derek could direct her, the film seemed stuck in development hell. Then Raiders came out, and Hollywood were quick to greenlight more of the same. Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest came on board, with Brian G. Hutton, the director of Where Eagles Dare and Kelly’s Heroes, directing what proved to be his final feature film. Selleck signed on for his consolation prize in what would become his first major starring role on film, with Wilford Brimley as the missing father, Bradley Tozer, veteran British actor Robert Morley as his duplicitous business partner, Jack Watson as Selleck’s loyal sidekick and Brian Blessed “blacking up” to play fearsome Afghan bandit Suleman Khan. Budgeted at $15 million, filming mainly took place in the former Yugoslavia and Croatia.

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It’s hard to deny the strengths of High Road to China. For a start, both Tom Selleck and Beth Armstrong are hugely charismatic screen presences and prove very likeable in the lead roles. Screenwriters Sandra Weintraub and S. Lee Pogostin write their characters in the traditions of old Hollywood; they spar with one another with catty put-downs and witty barbs before they realise, in a climactic battle in defence of a Tibetan hillside village, that all these arguments had simply disguised their growing love for one another. Then there’s Brian G. Hutton’s accomplished direction, with every shot of the film showing us exactly were that $15 million budget went. These are the kind of movies that just don’t get made any more – CGI has all but put an end to them. Hutton isn’t setting out to make a Raiders rip-off, he’s making his own film, and he’s calling on the same traditions of high adventure and romance from the 1930s and 40s that have clearly influenced the screenplay too. There’s also a sumptious score from John Barry, but the Bond composer isn’t replicating the popcorn delights of that series, this is John Barry on the road to such films as Out of Africa or Dances with Wolves; a big, sweeping romantic soundtrack.

Equally, it’s just as impossible to deny the film’s weaknesses. For all the charisma and bickering of Selleck and Armstrong, the tone of the film isn’t light enough to sell it. Audiences expecting a freewheeling comic action romp like Raiders will be disappointed at the overall tone on display here. It’s too serious, Hutton doesn’t seem capable to pick up the comic beats and the atmosphere often feels sucked out of the action, leading to a vaguely lifeless affair in which action setpieces simply happen and do little to quicken the pulse. It perhaps doesn’t help that so much of the movie is based in the air; it’s just a little hard to really get excited about Selleck peering out from the cockpit of his biplane against a bluescreen backdrop of blue skies. Ultimately, one of the biggest flaws in High Road to China is how low stakes it all feels. Unlike Raiders with its Nazis, there’s no real villains on offer here. All of Robert Morley’s scenes as the man whose designs on Eve’s inheritance form the basis of the narrative, take place in England, where he receives updates on his agents continuing failures to stop her and O’Malley’s progress by Timothy Bateson’s hapless and snivelling aide. These scenes naturally feel too removed from the action and are played for comedic effect, meaning that the threat never feels particularly great, and Morley’s just too cuddly to play the architect of Eve’s potential misfortune. Likewise, the antagonist characters that she and O’Malley come into contact with along the way – Wolf Kahler’s German flying ace, Anthony Chinn’s Chinese warlord – make little impression. Only Blessed is given any adequate screentime to perform such a role which, when viewed with the politically correct sensibilities of today, you’d rather wish that they hadn’t bothered.

This attractive Toy Robot release includes new interviews with Bess Armstrong, the associate producer Frederick Muller, and stunt co-ordinator Vic Pratt, as well as the obligatory trailer.

MARK’S ACHIVE – HIGH ROAD TO CHINA