A very detailed piece, great reading!
Thanks so much Raphael!
Raphaël Millet is a film director, producer and critic with a passion for early cinema. He has published two books, “Le Cinéma de Singapour” (2004) and “Singapore Cinema” (2006), as well as directed documentaries such as “Gaston Méliès and His Wandering Star Film Company” (2015), screened as part of the 2015 Singapore International Film Festival, and “Chaplin in Bali” (2017), which opened the Bali International Film Festival in 2017.
— David DeWitt
ILIKEFLYNN
April 13, 2020 at 8:04 pm
Thank you, David. When you asked me about the British release poster of “Five Ashore in Singapore” I posted on this site awhile back and informed me about the article that was being written about the film I wondered when and if I would be able to see it. As the author of the article, “The Forgotten Films of Sean Flynn” which was published in “Filmfax Plus” magazine (issue #128, Fall, 2011) I am very interested in any thing Sean Flynn. Mr. Millet wrote a very thorough and interesting article. It also confirmed my suspicions that that was Sean’s voice on the film’s soundtrack. (Since Sean was in the acting biz mainly for the money, on some of his films released in English, his voice was dubbed by the particular distributor.) One thing that Mr. Millet did not mention was that Sean did most of his own stunts, which he liked to do as I believe his friend, actor George Hamilton wrote. Sean himself did not think much of this picture, as even though he may have received his best reviews for what he called, “The worst thing I ever did.” I became interested in this movie as it was the first Sean Flynn film I had ever seen when it played one afternoon here in my native New York City on the old WOR-TV, channel 9. I later obtained a copy of the film from a dealer on eBay who claimed he had a made-to-order VHS tape from the distributor which according to the credits on the print was a “Paramount Release”. For any one interested in seeing this picture a pan and scan print was uploaded to the SeanFlynnCambodia channel on YouTube. You can see him “make a dive off an exploding pier” as I wrote “worthy of an Olympic swimming champion.” He also became very friendly with his costar, Marika Green as evidenced by the photos of the two of them on motorcycle that were auctioned on eBay.–A. R.
Ralph Schiller
April 13, 2020 at 11:10 pm
Rafael thank-you for sharing this and I enjoyed your masterwork article on Sean Flynn’s film career in FILM FAX magazine. When I had a copy of “Five Ashore In Singapore” it also had Paramount titles but that studio did not release it in the US. Ralph Schiller
ILIKEFLYNN
April 14, 2020 at 8:35 pm
Thank you for your comment. I presumed that due to that credit Paramount must have released the film as they had released his first film in the U.S. Do you know why the film had that credit?
Gentleman Tim
April 13, 2020 at 11:35 pm
Superb work, Raphaël! Five Stars!!!!!
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I didn’t realize Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were there, too!!
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[img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c8/c3/f3/c8c3f3b54281620362bc12e8cd7c5027.jpg[/img]
Gentleman Tim
April 14, 2020 at 6:58 am
Sounds like Sean and Marika had some fun kissing and riding in Singapore:
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[img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/b3/fc/e6b3fcc4f356442a42cdbf42fa7250bb.jpg[/img]
Probablykissing
Gentleman Tim
April 13, 2020 at 11:37 pm
I wonder what happened to the footage of the film Sean was directing?!?
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Ralph Schiller
April 14, 2020 at 10:36 pm
Paramount released the film somewhere overseas. Ralph Schiller
ILIKEFLYNN
April 15, 2020 at 9:05 pm
Interesting. I presume it was then released by Paramount where there are English speaking markets other than England or where they might release the English print with appropriate subtitles for the particular market. (I myself have a copy of “Duel at the Rio Grande” in English with Finnish subtitles that I traded for with a member on this blog from Finland.) This must be the print I saw on WOR-TV, channel 9 back in the late seventies. All though I do recall it was listed in my TV guide as “Singapore, Singapore” even though the on-screen title was “Five Ashore in Singapore”. I seem to recall the announcer would say “we now return to “Singapore, Singapore” starring Sean Flynn” when the movie came back from commercial break. So now the mystery remains who released the film in the U.S. theatrically if at all. I have yet to see a poster for “Singapore, Singapore”. (Interestingly a British poster of the film, with title, “Five Ashore in Singapore” appeared for auction on eBay where it shows the film was “released by Compton Film Distributors.”) If the film was released in the U.S. theatrically it must have been an extremely limited release. (For ex. the Takeshi Kitano film, “Brother” which costarred Omar Epps was released for one week in New York City in one theater where I had the fortune to see it and probably got that exposure because it featured American actor Omar Epps.) –A. R.