MovieChat Forums > The Shanghai Gesture (1942) Discussion > Questions about holes in the plot (SPOIL...

Questions about holes in the plot (SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!)

posted 17 years ago by Tristan!-2
15 replies | jump to latest

Stop reading here if you haven't seen the film yet. Major spolier alerts....

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The Russian rickshaw guy. What was all that about? Was he working for Mrs Gin Sling (it was he who opened the curtains). What was the point at the end when he takes Sir Guy into the room?

Gin Sling kills Poppy. Why? OK Poppy was rude to Gin Sling but it still made little sense.

Did Gin Sling get to keep the casino open? One imagines so, as the final scene is of the casino being open. But why should Gin Sling's revelation that Gin Sling was Sir Guy's former wife presumed dead have any sway in keeping the place open? And now Gin Sling has killed Sir Guy's daughter, even less reason for her still to be allowed to run the casino. Makes no sense. And in any case, I thought it was the Chinese authorities who were having a clampdown on the area, and Sir Guy's firm were just acting on their behalf?

What was the point of all the other dinner guests - other than they all owed money or something and Chinese New Year is a time for repaying debts? What's with the missing head on one of the statuettes? And the girls in the cages (apart from providing a little titillation, and to bring in Gin Sling's bit about how imprisoned she felt after being left for dead).

Why was Victoria calling herself Poppy Smith? I read something about it implying that Poppy was a heroin or opium user, but then why call HERSELF that?

I assume that Gin Sling kept giving Poppy more credit to embarrass her father (Gin Sling did not know that Poppy was her own daughter). But when did Gin Sling discover that Poppy was Sir Guy's daughter?

The whole film had so many holes in it. And let's not talk about the atrocious acting - especialy Gene Tierney as she is trying to seduce Omar outside his apartment.

[–] smoke0 17 years ago

Yes, he worked for Mother Gin Sling.

Mother Gin Sling killed Poppy because she got her angry, because she was her daughter, because she was Sir Guy's daughter, because she was no good, because she reminded Mother Gin Sling of herself..take your pick.

The end of the movie showed the casino as a reprise, not as a fact that it remained open.

The dinner guests were people who were in one way or another indebted to Mother Gin Sling. She broke the head off the statue representing Poppy because she was planning on hurting Sir Guy by destroying his daughter. The girls in the cages were a show put on by Mother Gin Sling to remind Sir Guy of what had happened to her when he left her.

Victoria picked a name out of the air, although the connotation is obvious.

Sir Guy told Mother Gin Sling that Victoria was her daughter right before she shot her.

There weren't any holes in the plot, it just required attention.

[–] the sphynx 16 years ago

"Sir Guy told Mother Gin Sling that Victoria was her daughter right before she shot her."

That doesn't answer the question by the original poster of when Gin Sling found out that "Poppy" was Charteris's daughter. It really isn't clear. Perhaps the coolie reported seeing Poppy at Charteris's house? We're never told.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] the sphynx 16 years ago

Some of those points were answered by the other poster. But I quite agree it makes no sense for Gin Sling to shoot Poppy/Victoria on the spot, right when she's finally found her again, just because Poppy doesn't at first thought want Gin Sling to be her mother.

Charteris had bought up the property the casino was on, so he had a lot to gain very directly by the crackdown on Gin Sling's den of vice.

I *think* the final scene of Guy in the street is immediately after the shooting, so of course the casino is still open. It won't be for long.

Tierney's acting is pretty bad. However, in the case of her attempt to seduce Omar, she was *deliberately* being obvious so we could see her foot wasn't really hurt and she was making a play. So that's not the best example of her bad acting in the film. I think she was exceptionally wooden early on.

[–] PenelopeTree 14 years ago

I still think that the shooting at the end of the film doesn't seem strongly motivated. The story doesn't give the audience enough reasons for her to flippin kill her. If this is what happened in the play I am sure it was much different. The screenplay was quite awful.

I wanna be sedated....

[–] nycruise-1 14 years ago

Keep in mind this is a much-censored version of a racy play. The real reason for the killing may have not been allowed by the Hays Code, i.e., outright prostitution of Poppy or real drug habit.

There may have been a reference somewhere that explained in sanitized terms, but perhaps it got left on the cutting room floor.

"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"

[–] nycruise-1 14 years ago

Also - given the racial attitudes of the time - despite this story's attempt to reap justice on behalf of "wronged" Asians, endings of the day had to recognize the "forbidden" nature of interracial romance.

Poppy turns out to be 1/2 Chinese - and so she, like Miss Julie in "Showboat" - once exposed, can never find happiness in either the White or the non-white world. Perhaps her mother, realizing how demanding Poppy is as well as effacing of her own mother's race, decides to save Poppy from a presumed life of misery by shooting her.

"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"

[–] robbearfl 14 years ago

I had seen this years ago and did a bit of research.
Mother Gin Sling knew that Poppy was Charteris' daugther, she did not know Poppy was also her daughter, she though that the girl was his daughter by another woman.

So she 'ruined' Poppy in revenge for Charteris leaving her and she assumed he had remarried a white woman.

I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday..but I cannot recall how she found out that Poppy was his daughter.

In China at the time there was intermarriage, but many times men would leave their wife/mistress in Shanghai to go back to England to continue their life after their term of service was finished and would Re Marry since Britain did not always recognize marriages to foreigners as they were seen as 'less than'.
Hillbillybob

[–] naladog77 14 years ago

I am stil confused about what happened- how did the family of three get separated in the first place? The baby was presumed/left for dead, Mother Ginsling is presumed/left for dead then forced into prostitution, Sir Charles is away? Or did he have a hand in it? I feel it was all very unclear.

Amanda

"She was drunk or he was crazy."

[–] robbearfl 14 years ago

In the version I saw it was never made clear, but there was a lot of social unrest in that part of the world. It seemed like he had been called back to England under some kind of urgency and then in all the madness he was told that Mother Ginsling had died(under whatever her name was).
I remember her having said that she disgraced her family saying here I was a poor(not money poor) Manchu daughter of an honourable house who took up with a foreigner.
What we don't usually hear is that Chinese of upper classes looked down on foreigners as heathen and uncivilised the same as Westerners did to them.

Hillbillybob

[–] sonnythefat 13 years ago

Revenge is what this story is about, Christians and Buddist agree Revenge does not work "what you do (revenge) you do to your self"
She distroyed her own daughter in her pointless quest for revenge (the Gesture)
a Drug Addict, a Nymphomaniac, with Syphlis ?
killing her was the end of the quest for revenge

[–] AsHimself 13 years ago

In addition to the reasons given, I think one more is because she'd thought for years that her daughter was dead "before it could babble 'Mother'. " After all that had just been revealed, why not make it official?

[–] mcornett 12 years ago

I read the original play recently (it's hard to find!), and the motivation is clearer. Mother God Damn (as she is called in the play) detests Poppy on sight. She meets Poppy early in the play when she and her lover, a Japanese diplomat, show up at the Mother's establishment (in the play, it's a brothel) for a thrill. Poppy is from the start a vulgar, loudmouthed, entitled wench who abuses drugs and openly calls herself a "nymphomaniac." Mother eventually guns her down when she find out Poppy is her daughter, because she detests her and also, to a degree, detests herself.

Also, there's a difference in that Mother God Damn had been cast aside after Sir Guy had used her as a mistress; he was already married, and Mother and Mrs. Charteris gave birth at the same time. Mother sneaked into the house and switched the babies. Sir Guy's legitimate daughter was raised in the brothel and was auctioned off to a gang of coolies (in a real auction).

Sir Guy is vile in the play; he walks into dinner (all the guests are being blackmailed by Mother and are forced to come or face public disgrace) and immediately seeks to make Mother his new mistress.

Facts need to come before certainty.

[–] AssetsonFire 12 years ago

The answer to all the questions is that the metaphors precede the plot. Things happen because they affirm what the director wants to say. Lazy writing, in other words.

[–] MidnightThud 9 years ago

The whole climax is pretty poor. We never really know why he left, how she lost the kid and then why she shot her.

One assumes the play, which was more frank, handles it all better and one feels they just threw stuff on the page for the script to speed to the end.