A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.
Direction
Von Sternberg's sets devour the actors whole.
Cinematography
Smoke, mirrors, and venetian blinds from another dimension.
Costume
Mother Gin Sling's headdresses: architecture, not fashion.
Director
Josef von Sternberg
Victor Mature
Doctor Omar
Ona Munson
'Mother' Gin Sling
Gene Tierney
Victoria Charteris (aka "Poppy Smith")
Walter Huston
Sir Guy Charteris
Phyllis Brooks
Dixie Pomeroy
Albert Bassermann
Van Elst
Maria Ouspenskaya
The Amah
Eric Blore
Caesar Hawkins
Ivan Lebedeff
Boris
Mike Mazurki
The Coolie
Clyde Fillmore
Percival Montgomery Howe
Grayce Hampton
Lady Blessington
Rex Evans
The Counselor
Mikhail Rasumny
The Appraiser
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The original play was so scandalous that the Hays Code demanded massive rewrites, diluting its explicit anti-colonial critique.
Gene Tierney hated her role as Poppy and called the film 'a masterpiece of bad casting I somehow survived.'
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