The Shanghai Gesture (1941)

Director

• Josef von Sternberg

Starring

• Gene Tierney
• Walter Huston
• Victor Mature
• Ona Munson
• Phyllis Brooks

Last On

02:15-03:55 Thu 4th Jun 2015 100m
Channel 4

Synopsis

Madame Gin Sling (Ona Munson), the owner of a Shanghai vice den, blackmails an English financier (Walter Huston) with secrets about his beautiful daughter (Gene Tierney). The 1925 play was much altered to make a movie that could get by 1941 censors (who would have nixed the original's depictions of drug addiction and prostitution), but the film -- which received Oscar nominations for art direction and music -- was still daring for its day.