Needing something more alluring, he asked Will Hays if “the Big U” could film John Colton’s stage shocker, The Shanghai Gesture. This story of miscegenation, white slavery, opium addiction, and genocide had been proscribed by the Formula, so Hays said no to Laemmle and then said yes to a dozen films of lesser pedigree and greater tawdriness, all the while placating the advocates of censorship.
