Target #265: The Shanghai Gesture (1941, Josef von Sternberg)

TSPDT placing: #790

Directed by: Josef von Sternberg

Written by: John Colton (play), Josef von Sternberg (adaptation), Geza Herczeg, Jules Furthman, Karl Vollmöller

Starring: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Ona Munson, Phyllis Brooks, Albert Bassermann, Eric Blore

Having just watched The Shanghai Gesture (1941), I'm not even sure what to make of it. Was it a good film? Was it a complete mess? The 100 minutes unfolded like a drug-induced haze, the alluring scent of an opiate hanging thickly in the air. Somehow, the film's plot – whatever it may have been about – seemed totally and utterly inconsequential, with director Josef von Sternberg placing additional, almost superfluous, importance on the development of mood. Indeed, aside from atmosphere, there's little else to keep you watching the film: the characters are sleazy and grotesque, the sort you'd expect to find at a seedy casino, its employees imbued with the mock dignity of one who deals exclusively in exploiting the weaknesses of lesser men. A good cast – Walter Huston, Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Eric Blore – is not exactly wasted on such poorly-developed characters, but one gets the sense that even they are not exactly sure what they're doing in this place. But, if the film is a failure, then it's a genuinely fascinating one.

"Mother" Gin Sling (Ona Munson, in unflattering Oriental make-up) is the mysterious and ruthless owner of a Shanghai casino, where desperate men come night or day to gamble their lives and fortunes. Employee Doctor Omar (Victor Mature) does his best to charm the beautiful girls who come his way, in one night snagging both smart-talking American Dixie (Phyllis Brooks) and conceited rich-girl "Poppy" (Gene Tierney). When threatened with closure by wealthy entrepreneur Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston), Gin Sling springs into action, using her enormous influence to rebuff the challenge. The Shanghai Gesture is sometimes categorised as film noir. Certainly, other noir pictures like Macao (1952), which Josef von Sternberg directed until he was replaced by Nicholas Ray, utilised a similarly exotic Asian setting, so the non-American locale doesn't immediately preclude it from consideration. In some ways, it fits the bill: every character in the film has a weakness – something to hide – through which they can be manipulated; a shady past that has come back to haunt them.

Despite being restricted by the provisions of the Production Code, The Shanghai Gesture is one of the sleaziest films of its era, leaving a bitter, uneasy taste in the mouth, despite impeccable production values. Hollywood's interpretation of Eastern cultural values was evidently unflattering, and every Asian character is utterly devoid of morals, with particularly prominence given to the proudly misogynistic attitudes of one Chinese employee who likes to brag of his polygyny. A shocking history of sex slavery is exposed, with New Year's Eve guests treated to a recreation of these ghastly practices (or, at least, we're told that it is merely a recreation). But it isn't only the Chinese whose immorality is exposed, and even the seemingly upright Sir Guy betrays a suspect past, doomed finally to suffer for his perceived sins. Walter Huston is excellent as always, bringing conviction to a film in which everybody else seems uncertain of their roles. Gene Tierney, perhaps her most ravishing performance outside Laura (1944), isn't particularly convincing, but her falseness does strangely work, given the desperate phoniness of her character.

6/10

Currently my #8 film of 1941:

1) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
2) The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)
3) 49th Parallel (Michael Powell)
4) The Wolf Man (George Waggner)
5) Shadow of the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
6) Swamp Water (Jean Renoir)
7) High Sierra (Raoul Walsh)
8) The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg)
9) Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock)

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Repeat Viewing: Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)

TSPDT placing: #1

Directed by: Orson Welles

Written by: Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz

Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris

Orson Welles' debut feature Citizen Kane stands as one of the twentieth century's most revered films, and, indeed, the title of "The Greatest Film Of All Time" has often been bestowed upon it, from as early as Sight and Sound's 1962 rankings, when it indefinitely dethroned De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948). After two viewings, I can't say that I find it to be the greatest film of all time, but any work with such a label would find it extremely difficult to live up to impossible expectations. Having said that, however, Citizen Kane is nothing short of masterful. In 1939, in an unprecedented studio contract, RKO offered young prodigy Welles, fresh from his success on the stage and the radio, a two-picture contract with full artistic control (a promise that ultimately wasn't kept). Borrowing elements from the lives of tycoons Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer, but especially American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Welles and fellow screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz weaved together the tragic story of Charles Foster Kane, poignantly highlighting the inescapable shortfalls of American Dream.

Charlie Kane (Welles) rises from humble beginnings to become one of the most famous and powerful people in America. At a very young age, Kane's mother inherits a gold mine and becomes suddenly wealthy, sending away her son to live with Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris), his mother's banker. Proving something of a disappointment for Mr. Thatcher, Kane shows little aspirations for success until the age of twenty-six, when he decides to head the 'Inquirer,' for the simple reason that he "thinks it would be fun to run a newspaper." Kane eventually becomes rich and powerful through publishing "yellow journalism," which, though frowned upon by most critics, proves immensely profitable. Decades later, after two unsuccessful marriages and a failed bid for public office, Kane sits alone in his massive, unfinished Xanadu mansion (the most massive, impersonal and even sinister abode ever to grace the silver screen), pining for the lost innocence of his childhood. This is the story of a tragic life, and the ultimate testament that money can't buy happiness.

The most remarkable thing about Citizen Kane is its narrative structure. The film opens with Kane's death. As the image fades into a large "NO TREPASSING" sign on the gate of Kane's vast and lonely dwelling, we progressively cut to images closer and closer to his house, witnessing the enormity of Kane's wealth, and yet all his riches seem to be in disrepair. A lone lit window stands eerily amidst the snow, before the light inexplicably goes out, the figure hunched within suddenly plunged into darkness. We see Charles Foster Kane's withered hand clasping at a snow-globe, and his lips utter the mystifying words, "Rosebud." With a sudden crash, the snow-globe slips from Kane's hand and shatters on the floor. A maidservant enters the room and covers the dead man's body with a blanket. Following his death, the producer of a newsreel about Kane asks a reporter, Jerry Thompson (William Alland), to uncover the significance behind Kane's final words, a well-meaning but rather naive attempt to encapsulate a man's entire life in a simple seven-letter name.

A criticism often levelled at Citizen Kane is that it feels less like a warm, involving biopic than a formal masterclass in film-making technique. It's true that Welles was exploring largely unmapped cinematic territory at the time, and there's a certain sense of experimentation about the film. Mankiewicz and Welles constructed the screenplay as a series of fragmented, non-chronological flashbacks, each sequence filling in the missing parts of Kane's life, sometimes even showing the same event from differing perspectives. Greg Toland's elaborate cinematography makes unprecedented use of deep focus, in which everything in the frame – foreground, background and anything in between – is constantly held in sharp focus; the end result is a film that feels far more dynamic and "animate" than anything preceding the French New Wave. All innovation aside, anybody who suggests that the life of Charles Foster Kane is somehow uninvolving really needs to revisit the film; Welles pours his heart and soul into portraying the arrogant, tormented and ultimately lonely millionaire, and it's uncanny how the director's own tragic career drew clear parallels with that of his most memorable character.

9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1941:

1) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
2) The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)
3) The Wolf Man (George Waggner)
4) Shadow of the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
5) High Sierra (Raoul Walsh)

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