At first sight, the exotic romance depicted in this film might seem
ideally suited to the great Sternberg. But the script becomes bogged
down in unremarkable criminal intrigue which proves insufficient to
stimulate any real artistic response from the director (replaced late
in shooting by Ray). Sternberg does however preserve something of his
irrepressible talent as a visual stylist, with the ubiquitous
netting, gambling houses and tightly claustrophobic sets defining
characters caught in a web that they can neither escape nor understand.
The performances are good-humoured.
