China Gate 1957

During the First Indochina War, Sgt. Brock Gene Barry and Goldie Nat ‘King’ Cole are American veterans serving as mercenaries with the French Foreign Legion. Brock’s wife, Lucky Legs Angie Dickinson, is a mixed-race Chinese-European woman who has struggled to feed her five-year-old son. After Brock abandons her when the child is born with Asian features—a reflection of the era’s prejudice against miscegenation—Lucky Legs turns to smuggling to survive. She is soon recruited by the French high command to use her knowledge of the region and her connection to the communist Major Cham to lead a demolition squad of Legionnaires, headed by Brock, to a vital hidden Viet Minh ammunition dump tucked along the border with Red China. In return, the French promise to arrange for her son’s emigration to America.

The raid unfolds as a tense test of loyalty and nerve, filled with hostility between the former lovers, perilous booby traps, and constant enemy patrols. On arrival at the mountain dump, Lucky Legs discovers that the commander she must face is her former friend, Major Cham, a formidable figure who eyes a future where she and her son might be taken to Moscow. Cham is portrayed as a rising, ambitious operator—a corporate-style executive in the world of international communism, reminiscent of the ruthless gangsters depicted in classic crime cinema. The sabotage operation is technically successful, but it exacts a heavy price: Lucky Legs dies in the explosion that obliterates the dump. Brock, now faced with the cost of his past and the hope of his future, reconciles with his child. The film closes with him walking hand in hand with the boy, planning a return to America, as Goldie reprises the title song and the memory of their story lingers in the air.