AllMovie

Although not much liked in its day, Joseph Von Sternberg's final great film is a "must" for anyone sharing the director's appetite for the sensually exotic. It doesn't really make much difference at this late date that most of playwright John Colton's then highly censurable characters have been severely watered down; that Colton's brothel owner, Madam Goddam, has become a gambling establishment proprietor named Madam Gin Slin (Ona Munson); that a torrid and adulterous love affair is turned into a broken marriage; or that the heroine's drug dependency instead becomes an addiction to gambling. The Shanghai Gesture, in fact, is much less Colton that it is Von Sternberg: here is the moody mise-en-scene, the fluid camera work and the erotic obsession. And, to his eternal credit, the director even manages to obtain sterling performances from such studio manufactured personalities as Gene Tierney and Victor Mature. As for Ona Munson, the erstwhile Belle Watling of Gone With the Wind is all caked makeup and desperation and not entirely the whore with a heart of gold that may have been intended.