They Met in Bombay

At the beginning of the movie, a friend of Gerald Meldrick is making an imitation of the Star of Asia. The film doesn't say what kind of gem it is, but there is a real Star of Asia. It's a 330-carat star sapphire. It is in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The deep blue gem was mined in Burma (modern Myanmar) and is said to have belonged to the Maharajah of Jodhpur at one time. An even larger blue sapphire is the Star of India. The 563-carat gem is one of the largest of its kind in the world. It has a colorful history that includes being heisted in 1964 from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The unusual stone, with stars on both sides, was recovered the following year. It was mined in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) around the year 1600, but much of its past before the 20th century is clouded.

When the Japanese soldiers confront Meldrick in the town square and, again, when the Japanese set an ambush on the road, they are wearing German "coal scuttle" helmets. In fact, contemporary photographs of the Japanese Army in China (e.g., during the Rape of Nanking) show Japanese soldiers with German army "coal scuttle" helmets, which, obviously, were purchased from Nazi Germany.

Featured in Clark Gable: Tall, Dark and Handsome (1996)