The Shanghai Gesture (1941) on Netflix
NR19411h 39mCrimeDramaMysteryRomance
'Mother' Gin Sling's casino in Shanghai must move by Chinese New Year. Doctor Omar invites a broke showgirl to the club and draws the attention of a guest calling herself Poppy Smith.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.5/103,256 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Shanghai, 'Mother' Gin Sling owns a casino and learns it must move to the Chinese sector within a few weeks, by Chinese New Year; the land it stands on has been bought by Sir Guy Charteris, a wealthy English entrepreneur. Doctor Omar, who works for Gin Sling, bribes the Shanghai police so they will not jail Dixie Pomeroy, a broke American showgirl, and invites her to seek work at the club. There he turns his attention to Victoria Charteris, a young woman just out of a European finishing school and out for excitement, who gives her name as Poppy Smith. Poppy falls for Omar and loses heavily at the tables, while Gin Sling lets her credit cover the losses.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- By 1940, an estimated 32 previous attempts had been made to turn the play into a film, among them ones by Cecil B. DeMille and by Edward Small at United Artists.
- Victor Mature described in a 1941 interview with Duncan Underhill how Josef von Sternberg yelled at him on set that he was not "a floorwalker in Shanghai's Macy's" but "a sinister dope" and "an innocent bush-league Mephisto."
- To appease the censor, the Japanese character of Prince Oshima was replaced with Dr. Omar to avoid depicting miscegenation.
