I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Lack of good storyline.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

"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

Sometimes I just put my reasoned critic to bed and grab my DVD of Shanghai Gesture for an evening of irrational delight. This extravagant, unhinged, twisted and sometimes terrible film is my Guilty Pleasure, a confession I honor by giving it a higher rating than it probably deserves. When this bizarre film was made, Hollywood, still under the yoke of a stringent production code, could not tackle many taboo subjects and thus director Josef Von Sternberg could only hint at them. The brothel, for instance, where the original Broadway play was set, becomes a gambling den (although girls in bamboo cages are dangled outside!) Any hints of drug use were forbidden, so Gene Tierney's opium-addled, spoiled monster of a daughter is named "Poppy" (as in Opium), and the owner of the casino, formerly Mother "G-D" is now called Mother Gin Sling...and so on. Most of America was flocking to see Mickey Rooney in The Hardy Family series, a happy product from MGM. Shanghai Gesture is hardly mainstream.This strange film was not made at a major studio, but produced by Arnold Pressburger, who did manage to sign an amazing assemblage of major character actors to enact a plot of ultimate revenge. There's Victor Mature, hiding in his capacious burnoose, sleazy in a fez, playing Dr. Omar, seducer of the innocent, or Ona Munson, remembered by some viewers as good-hearted bordello gal Belle Watling in Gone With The Wind, sporting a series of Hollywood's most outrageous wigs. And there's Walter Huston with a gimpy arm, and even acting instructor Maria Ouspenskaya, wordless as "The Amah."The sets alone are worth the viewing, from the initial shot of Madame Gin Sling's gambling den, a Deco vortex of gambling activity sucking you into an absurd plot loaded with illogical coincidence. This frenzied Asian Fantasy, which has little to do with reality, and everything to do with Out-Of-Control Style can be great fun and is sometimes admirable for the right reasons. "You likee Chinee New Year?" says Mike Mazurki, usually seen in films as a two-bit gangster, here a shirtless bouncer who has seldom been better! One caveat: Criterion needs to get their hands on this one and turn out a decent print--the DVD quality is, at best, mediocre! But I want my Shanghai Gesture anyway!

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.)

Josef von Sternberg's crazy film stars Gene Tierney as a good girl who goes woefully bad while visiting Shanghai. At the local casino she runs into the likes of "doctor" Victor Mature, showgirl Phyllis Brooks (as Dixie Pomeroy) as well as the dragon lady proprietor Ona Munson (as Mother Gin Sling!). The film is fun but way too outrageous for its own good. Munson is unforgettable though dangerously close to being upstaged by her outlandish hairdos. Mature is awful wearing a fez and claiming to be born in Damascus. Tierney, just 21 at the time, gives a wildly uneven performance...at first a fairly convincing femme fatale and then later a very whiny ingénue. By the time Tierney's seemingly respectable father Walter Huston shows up, von Sternberg throws the film into melodramatic overdrive. You have to see the last 1/2 hour to believe it. The production values are stunning, including brilliant art direction by Boris Leven and great cinematography by Paul Ivano.