yellow fever

The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
2 Stars
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Starring Gene Tierney, Ona Munson, Walter Huston, Victor Mature
Only in Hollywood does a Swiss-Austrian-American from Kentucky play an Armenian, a Swedish-American from Portland and a Russian play "Chinee", and an Irish-American blue-blood from Brooklyn play a Chinese-English half-breed. The story is as random as the casting, not fully developing any aspect or character, right up to the abrupt ending. Gene Tierney at the ripe age of twenty is the only real reason to watch this. Like Tierney, the gesture I'd use to describe this movie originates not in Shanghai, but Brooklyn.