Bachelors Beware
Director: Evan Yang
Year: 1960
Rating: 7.0
As much as I have
enjoyed finally getting to see many of the Cathay classics from the 1950’s
and 60’s, I have to admit that much of my pleasure rests in their familiarity.
They tend to be fairly conventional and easily fall within the traditions,
style and framework of Hollywood films from the same period (remember Hollywood
was not a bad word back then!). Plots are generally linear, scripts are well
honed with life like dialogue, acting performances are subtle and natural,
camera movement is smooth but rarely experimental and the stories and characters
feel based on real people and true experiences.
In other words they are very different in attitude and style than the Hong
Kong films that many of us know from the 1980s’ and 90’s. Those films captured
our imagination for their speed, their recklessness, their outrageousness,
their willingness to bend reality and the rules of cinema – and we loved them
for this. But by doing so they often sacrificed coherent plots and well written
scripts – the focus was on movement and that often more than compensated for
characters and stories that were sometimes paper thin. Cathay films have no
movement, no flash – they are all about character, sentiment and the script.
One thing that both periods of film have in common though are wonderful, charismatic
actresses that dominate the screen. That would of course be the other reason
that I have so enjoyed these films!
Bachelors Beware (1960) falls squarely into a Hollywood comic tradition
from the 40’s/50’s – i.e. “Every Girl Should Be Married”, “How to Marry a
Millionaire” – in which a very determined female lines up a respectable man
in her marriage sights and hunts him down! In this film there are in fact
four women who seem to have no real goal in life other than getting married
to a good man and settling down. These sentiments are certainly outdated
to a large degree – aren’t they? - and may offend some – but they make for
an amusing fluffy little film in which it is impossible not to root for the
heroine to get her man.
The heroine in this case is the wide-eyed and adorable Linda Lin Dai. She
comes to Hong Kong for the first time to marry her cousin and childhood friend,
Zhang Yang. Of course Zhang has no inkling of this – in fact he is a consummate
believer in marital freedom and has three girlfriends twirling about him like
Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. At one time he compares women to clothes – you
change clothes every day, why wouldn’t you do the same with women – and at
another time to teacups – he is the teapot, they are the teacups and a set
is made of one teapot and four teacups!
Linda clearly has her work cut out for her and begins devising an exit strategy
for the three girlfriends – Lin Hui, Yu Suqiu and Dolly Soo Fung. Zhang may
think Linda is still a little girl, but behind those arching eyebrows and
cute pout she has a mind that Machiavelli would be jealous of! Slowly, but
surely the competition disappears (she gets rid of these clay symbolic statuettes
as they do) – the first two are easy, but the third is a tough old bird who
won’t go down. Then as a last resource, Linda brings out the heavy artillery
– sex appeal – the bathing suit ploy with crowds of men admiring her form
– does it ever fail? Appearing also are two other Cathay regulars – Kelly
Lai Chen as Zhang’s brother and Liu Enjia as the manservant.
Becoming one of my favorite directors is Evan Yang who also scripts most
of his films. After having seen Mambo Girl, Air Hostess, Our Dream Car and
now this it is difficult not to be impressed by his ability to tell a story.
His characters are eminently likable and though there are strong elements
of sentimentality, he never overplays them. He also has a puckish sense of
humor that comes out on occasion – here the entire scene in which Zhang sees
Linda in a bathing suit and the follow up has no dialogue but instead has
a song from a Greek chorus narrate the story to comic effect.
"People are pushing and pulling
Because they want to look closer at the little beauty
It’s really her in front of my eyes"
Bachelor’s doesn’t quite have the zip of
Mambo Girl, the sweetness of Our Dream Car or the giddy coolness of Air Hostess
– but it is an enjoyable old-fashioned bit of mush that is appealing on
a simple level – especially for those who are fans of Linda Lin Dai.