Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

James Hitchcock "The Shanghai Gesture" was made in 1941 but is set in 1920s or early 1930s, before Shanghai it came under Japanese occupation in 1937 and at a time when the city had a large European and American expatriate community and. At the centre of the story is a casino owned by a Chinese woman named "Mother Gin Sling". I have never read or seen the play on which the film is based, but I gather that in the original the character was called "Mother Goddamn" and that her establishment was a brothel rather than a casino. There was no way in 1941 that the film-makers could have got that past the Breen Office. Broadway was evidently more liberal than Hollywood about such matters. The plot revolves around four main characters. These are Mother Gin Sling herself, "Poppy Smith", a beautiful, privileged young woman whose real name is either Victoria Charteris or Victoria Dawson, Victoria's father Sir Guy Charteris aka Victor Dawson (he uses both names and it is unclear which one is real) and Victoria's mysterious lover Doctor Omar. I won't set out the plot in full, as it is rather complicated and in some places does not make a great deal of sense, but the salient features are a plan by Charteris/Dawson to redevelop a large area of Shanghai, a threat to relocate Gin Sling's gambling den from the European settlement to the less lucrative Chinese sector and some surprising revelations about Poppy/Victoria's real parentage. The film is sometimes described as "film noir", but it has little to do with the classic American noirs of this period. Despite its near-contemporary setting it has more the feel of being set in some weird Orientalist fantasy of China, a land whose fiendishly inscrutable inhabitants are barely recognisable as members of the human race and who talk in a bizarre pidgin ("You likee Chinese New Year?") which bears no resemblance to the way real Chinese people speak English. This is so even though the main Chinese characters are played by white actors in "yellowface". In the case of Mother Gin Sling this was presumably done to keep the censors happy. We learn that Gin Sling was at one time married to a European, and although the Production Code officially forbade depictions of "miscegenation", there was an unwritten rule that romances between white men and Asian or Native American (but not black) women were acceptable provided that the lady in question was played by a Caucasian actress. (Gin Sling is played by Ona Munson). There was, however, no equivalent rule permitting romances between white women and Asian men; in the original play Poppy/Victoria's lover was Japanese, but for the screen he became the half-French half-Middle Eastern Doctor Omar, played by Victor Mature. The film was positively received by some reviewers at the time, and even received two Oscar nominations, for "Best Art Direction" and "Best Original Music Score", but I find it difficult to understand why. The acting is not of a particularly high standard. Gene Tierney as Poppy/Victoria is as beautiful as ever, but this is far from being her finest hour. Mature is wooden (as he often could be) and although the script suggests that Mother Gin Sling is a woman of strong passions Munson gives little hint of this in a largely emotionless performance. I am not sure whether Munson remained emotionless in a deliberate attempt to suggest her character's fiendishly inscrutable nature or whether this was because her thick make-up, looking as though it had been applied with a trowel, made it impossible for her to convey any feelings. One reviewer described the film as "a delirious masterpiece of decadence and sexual depravity that surrounds itself with Eastern motifs that are meant to mystify rather than enlighten". Apart from "masterpiece" I could adopt every single word of that quotation, but I would mean it as criticism rather than praise. Films which aim at mystification rather than enlightenment need very capable handling if they are not to descend into incomprehensible nonsense or inadvertent comedy, and I am afraid that director Josef von Sternberg (in his last completed Hollywood film) never comes close to pulling off that particular trick. "The Shanghai Gesture" may be delirious, decadent and depraved. A masterpiece it is not. 4/10

edwagreen Dreadful film best summarizes this 1941 movie.Businessman Walter Huston buys up land and wants to evict gambling house owner Ona Munson. Was Ms. Munson always cast as the gambling house dame? Remember her as Belle Watling, owner of the brothel and gambling in the memorable "Gone With the Wind?" By the way, what did Munson have on top of her head, a bird cage? Just like the rest of the film, it is absolutely ridiculous.Gin-sling, or whatever her name is, recognizes Huston and in a memorable Chinese New Year celebration reveals herself to him. Gene Tierney did some pretty good acting here. In a way, she reminded me of her part in 1946's "The Razor Edge," but the latter film was so far superior to this junk.The film seems to drag at the tables. You know the voice of the Frenchman who calls the numbers-Vingt-neuf rouge (29-red, etc.)

sol ***SPOILERS*** Originally on Broadway in 1926 "The Shanghai Gesture" was a lot hotter and spicier hen it was made into a movie some 15 years later. The play involved drugs prostitution and a high class whore house that was replaced by Mother Gin Sing's Casino in the very sanitized, due to the Hollywood Hayes Commission, movie version.In the move Mother Gin Sing, Ona Munson, who runs a very profitable casino in downtown Shanghai is threatened to be evicted by big time British land developer Sir Guy Charteris, Walter Huston, who plans to convert it into a luxury high rise overlooking the South china Sea. While running her casino Mother Gin Sing spots this English woman Poppy, Gene Terney, at the bar and immediately takes a shine to her. Getting Poppy drunk on drinks thats on the house Mother Gin Sing encourages her to gamble the night away giving Poppy unlimited credit where she ends up getting as much as 20,000 Bitish pounds in debt. What we in the audience as well as Poppy don't know is that Moher Gin Sing is hatching a plan that in the end will save her casino from being foreclosed and taken over by Sir Guy! And it's that sinister and evil plan that's she's planning to lay on the unsuspecting Sir Guy at the closing party for the by then defunct casino on the forthcoming Chinese New year that he Poppy and a number of other Shanghai luminaries are invited to attend!The movie is a take on Dante's Inferno where hell is a casino where there's no end to the action and where the action never ends. We see people playing the tables for what seems like eternity never running out of money with money being by far the cheapest commodity in the place. The big surprise is at the going away party when Mother Gin Sing spills the beans of Sir Guy in what a low life heel he really is in what he did to her when she was a young girl some 20 years earlier.****SPOILERS*** The by far biggest surprise in the film is what Mother Gin Sing's relationship is with Poppy that Sir Guy's been hiding for her all these years. The revelations that Sir Guy brings out is so shocking that it leads Mother Gin Sing to completely flip out and end up doing something that not even her money status and political and police connections can cover up or get her out of.Strange casting in the movie with Victor Mature looking as if he's stoned on pot as this spaced out looking guy called Doctor Omar who thinks he's a poet but, like those of us listening to his corny lyrics, really doesn't have the talent to be one. There's also in the movie cast the hulking and non Asiatic looking, with a deep Florida suntan, ex-professional wrestler Mike Mazurki playing of all people a Chinese coolie.

Alex da Silva Victoria (Gene Tierney) is be-friended by Dr Omar (Victor Mature) and lured into hanging out at a Shanghai casino owned by 'Mother' Gin Sling (Ona Munson). Victoria mounts up some gambling debts and takes a shine to the booze that's on offer as she descends from posh girl to vice addict. Drugs and prostitution are also definitely on the menu although we are not shown this. We can certainly assume that this path has been taken by Dixie (Phyllis Brooks), another of Dr Omar's recent recruits. Victoria's father, Sir Guy (Walter Huston), is in town to close down 'Mother' Gin Sling's establishment and to meet with his daughter, although he does not realize that she is part of the scene which he wants to close down. 'Mother' Gin Sling holds a dinner party on the Chinese New Year where she confronts Sir Guy with a few truths......she also gets a surprise.......The acting is good in this film, apart from Gene Tierney. Victor Mature is smooth in a letchy way - he is almost dripping in oiliness. The best performances come from Walter Huston and Ona Munson and their scenes together are very dramatically charged. Phyliss Brooks is good as a tart who falls in with the underworld crowd but I'm afraid to say that depsite headlining this film, Gene Tierney is the worst of the 3 female leads. She is not bad at portraying a spoilt, rich girl but she is dreadful when called upon to do any actual acting. Her whining scene outside Mature's room is agonizingly annoying, her crying scene is shameful and her transformation to wild girl is unconvincing.The dialogue is amusing at times with 'Mother' Gin Sling's benefactor Montgomery Hower (Clyde Fillmore) delivering the funniest lines, eg, "...someone has pinched you.....I hope..." at the dinner party, whilst 'Mother' Gin Sling and Sir Guy deliver the more dramatic prose. The story unravels itself quite quickly from the dinner party scene and it can be difficult to follow so pay attention or you will be asking yourself questions at the end. I also found the ending ambiguous and the interpretation I favoured was that things remain as normal. However, this is probably not what happens.The sets are good and visually striking and the final words must go to Ona Munson. Not only was she mesmerizing as the Shanghai underground leader - she steals every scene that she is in - but her head-dress is something else. She is a cartoon-like character of evil with wicked witches and stepmothers and the Medusa all rolled into one. Very striking. Is she that bad a person, though?