Abrechnung in Shanghai

Marlene Dietrich,even if she does not appear is present here :she's the marvelous Gene Tierney,the terrifying Ona Munson and the cynical Victor Mature."The Shanghai gesture" is one of my favorite Sternberg movies.I love the lines which warns us at the beginning of the film:it's not real Shanghai,it does not take place in the present.

"The Shanghai gesture" is an unclassifiable work: a film noir?a melodrama?Most likely an extravaganza ,an incredible exotic story which smells of the intoxicating perfume of poisonous flowers.The gigantic dive looks like a cobweb which the high priestess Mother Gin Sling spins ."Why not Mother Whiskey Soda? " Tierney asks.

All the characters are not what they seem ,they just pretend.Tierney has two names (one of them is the well-chosen "Poppy") and we only learn her real identity in the second half in a scene which seems completely "out of the movie".Mature is Doctor Omar ,doctor of nothing! Even the women in the cages and the sailors who buy them just pretend .Nothing is real.

Tierney's downfall is depicted in lavish detail:from the elegant woman of the beginning to the wreck Gin Sling invites to her Chinese New Year feast .Directing is absolutely breathtaking,when the camera circles around the dive where a cast of thousands -Sternberg even pays a tribute to the extras in the cast and credits,which is rare ,to my knowledge ,the first and last time it had been made-surrounds the heroine ,or in the final scenes ,when the shots merge with the firecrackers of the New Year.

"The Shanghai gesture" may be a guilty pleasure.But this kind of pleasure ,I ask for more!

More weird than exotic, it's like waking up and finding Ming The Merciless in charge of a Las Vegas casino. Then too, Mother Gin Sling's head should be featured in Architectural Digest since it resembles nothing less than the Manhattan skyline. And how wacky is it finding all those central European types hiding out in Shanghai as Chinese of one racial blend or another. No wonder the Chinese consulate complained. Only wacko Hollywood could turn a semi-pornographic play into a trip to bizarro-land and put a visual artist like von Sternberg in charge.

For example, catch that great opening boom-shot of the casino interior where patrons swarm like bees over a hive. Or the surging street crowds that seem to suck the life out of the very air. I think Sternberg could take an empty room and make it visually interesting. No doubt about it, the Austrian director lifts the eye at the same time he depresses the brain. What the heck, for example, did he tell Gene Tierney that turned her from a Miss Manners in one scene into a raging nympho the next. I guess that was supposed to be because of Victor Mature's overwhelming magnetism even though he lounges around like a well-fed garden slug. No doubt about it, the celebrated director preferred postures to people.

Still, where else could a passing stranger buy a girl-in-a-basket instead of the usual chicken. That scene alone is worth all the other nuttiness, like telling us the girls are just- pretend. Yeah, sure. I'll bet the Chinese consulate didn't think so. Even so, you can't blame the screenplay for having more holes than grandma's sieve. This is incendiary material for the Production Code 40's— brothels, hookers, opium dens, babies out of wedlock. How else could enterprising producers get this on screen without a trip to bizzaro-land. The straight- laced Walter Huston must have thought he'd wandered into the wrong sound stage.

Any way you cut it, it's a weird one-of-a-kind-- half camp, half brilliance-- so don't miss it.

Don't believe anyone who tells you this movie is bad - it is wonderful. The casino set with its art deco sculptures is a work of art and the music is superb. The play the script is based on is by John P. Marquand, who wrote the Mr. Moto books. I think in the original Poppy becomes addicted to drugs as well as to Dr. Omar. Gene Tierney is great as the girl who slides into degeneracy. All the ensemble cast are wonderful: the earthy chorus girl, the sinister old Chinese man who says he admires white women for their "intelligence and sense of humour" as his hands outline a voluptuous figure in the air. Mike Mazurski as a thug who acts as an ever-present Fate figure haunting Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston). The elderly notable who regrets so politely that he must close Mother Gin Sling's operation down. Mother G herself with her bitter, drawling voice that has foresuffered all. See it if you can! This film is art! (Oh, I forgot the smiling character who plays Chopin in the casino/brothel.)

As you might guess from the title, The Shanghai Gesture takes place in Shanghai. Ona Munson stars as Mother Gin Sling, who runs a gambling casino. When you watch this drama, you might get the feeling that it's a little watered down to pass the censors, and that's because it was! The original story was much racier, including drugs, cursing, and prostitution, but it had to be dialed down dozens of times before the Hays Code let it pass through to movie audiences.

Hazel Rogers and Robert Stephanoff had their hands full preparing Ona in the makeup chair and with elaborate wig designs. Adding in lavish costumes by Oleg Cassini and Royer, and jewelry by Eugene Joseff, and she really is spectacular to look at. She's plays a villainess who lures Gene Tierney into her casino by offering unlimited credit and free drinks, in order to seek revenge on Gene's father Walter Huston. Why does Ona want revenge? And perhaps the better question is why does Gene become a gambling dope fiend just because she's given unlimited credit and free drinks?

If you like seedy corruption films in an exotic setting, like Barbary Coast, you can give this one a shot. You're going to have to read between the lines, though, but it shouldn't be that hard to do, since the implications are there.

It was more than I had hoped for. Hollywood forties film noir glamour...yet everyone is rotten to the core and no one wins. Great performances from a time when stars could act and made the most of a script...and what script! They sure don´t make them like that anymore. Such ideas...the characters...so unusual but people like them have probably existed...

Lovely Gene Tierney transcending her enchanting beauty showing that looks aren´t enough. Victor Mature also playing someone of great charm and little character. I like how the beautiful leads aren´t the heroes. No one is! Ona Munson - so amazing and otherwordly! Where are the strong character parts for women like that today??

The sumptuous sets, everything steeped in mystery. What an atmosphere von Sternberg created...! I loved it! I want so see more films like this and I could see it again. Is it available on video?

Thank you Hollywood!