The Mountain Road

The Mountain Road (1960)

Flaming skies... blasted earth... the touch of love!

In 1944, in eastern part of China, U.S.Army Major Baldwin and his volunteer team of demolition engineers are left behind the retreating Chinese forces. Their task is to slow down the Japanese advance into eastern China by blowing up bridges, roads, airfields and munitions dumps. They start by blowing up an American airfield and ammo dump. They receive the order to destroy a vital bridge over a mountain pass.The team uses a few army trucks to move around. At the bridge, they encounter a Nationalist Chinese Army unit in charge of guarding the bridge. Thanks to an American soldier who speaks some Chinese, Major Baldwin requests the permission, from the Chinese commander, to blow up the bridge.The Chinese colonel agrees but asks the American Major to do him a favor by also destroying a munitions dump located at some distance away.He also requests that Madame Sue-Mei Hung, the widow of a Chinese colonel, be transported by the American demolition team to the nearest major town.

Date of release
1960-06-15
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (12)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Drama, War
Director
Daniel Mann

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: California

The Mountain Road is a 1960 American war film starring James Stewart and directed by Daniel Mann. Set in China and based on the 1958 novel of the same name by journalist-historian Theodore H. White, the film follows the attempts of a U.S. Army major to destroy bridges and roads potentially useful to the Japanese during World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War. White's time covering China for Time magazine during the war led to an interview with former OSS Major Frank Gleason Jr., who served as head of a demolition crew that inspired the story and film. Gleason was later hired as an uncredited technical adviser for the film.

Production

Although the Japanese invaders were the feared antagonists, they never appear, as The Mountain Road diverges from typical World War II action films by dealing with a more sensitive subplot, delving into the cultural misunderstanding and racial prejudice between American soldiers and their Chinese allies.

During planning, a number of actors and production staff were considered, including Marlon Brando and Robert Mitchum for the male lead role, Chinese actress Dora Ding as the female lead, James Wong Howe as director of photography, and Don Rickles, who was making a name as a "second banana" in films. Lisa Lu, who played Madame Sue-Mei Hung in her first major role, recruited P. C. Lee, Leo Chen, Richard Wang and C. N.

Principal photography began on June 9, 1959, with location filming taking place at various Arizona locations. The set for the Chinese village was erected on the Horse Mesa Dam Road, 40 miles (64 km) east of Phoenix. Another set was erected in the vicinity of Superstition Mountain.

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