A bordo del 'Shanghai'

Thuggish steward (Louis Wolheim) leads a mutiny aboard a yacht. The first half of the film makes us kind of hate the rich passengers on the yacht, particularly the insipid romance of Conrad Nagel and Kay Johnson. But after the mutiny the film seems to shift sympathies back to them and away from the highly entertaining power-hungry steward. The whole movie centers on Louis Wolheim's intense performance. Wolheim died the year after this was released. I was surprised to find out he was actually a math teacher at Cornell before his acting career. This is an OK movie considering the age. It creaks a little but not as badly as some claim. Amusingly, despite living under harsh conditions adrift at sea for days or weeks with very little water or food, neither Nagel nor Johnson ever have their hair mussed up.

In far eastern Shanghai, wealthy westerners enjoy singing and dancing to the hit song "Singin' in the Rain" (a contemporary hit then, memorably revived for MGM's 1952 musical). Among the party-goers, American playboy Conrad Nagel (as Howard Vazey) romances British socialite Kay Johnson (as Dorothy Daley). With three other upper-class passengers, they get on board a yacht bound for San Francisco. Brutish and angry steward Louis Wolheim (as Ted) is on "The Ship from Shanghai" and, as you quickly know, he hates snooty rich people – with a passion. "Willowy English girls, fair and pink" arouse Mr. Wolheim, who plans to take over the ship and abduct Ms. Johnson...

Making his "all-talking" feature debut, director Charles Brabin is clearly getting his feet wet under the new microphones. He is unable to lead an interesting cast to good, consistent performances. New to motion pictures, Johnson comes across best; she had just co-starred with Mr. Nagel in Cecil B. DeMille's "Dynamite" (1929). Watching Nagel's career falter is sad; he was an engaging and popular actor. "Silent" film stars Carmel Myers and Holmes Herbert (as Viola and Paul Thorpe) attend to the secondary roles, with veteran stage actress Zeffie Tilbury on board as an old society lady. Some of the acting works better with the sound turned down, but some is just overwrought, period.

**** The Ship from Shanghai (1/31/30) Charles Brabin ~ Louis Wolheim, Kay Johnson, Conrad Nagel, Carmel Myers

A group of wealthy socialites take a cruise on their yacht but a storm cripples the ship, making it possible for the disgruntled crew to mutiny.

Flat-nosed Louis Wolheim does his best in the role of an insane crewman with dreams of power but his exaggerated performance makes this dull film laughable and only mildly entertaining. The acting is stagy, the story melodramatic, and the early sound technology makes for long stretches of awkward silence. Unless you're interested in someone from the cast, or want to see how bad some early talkies could be, skip this one.

1930 was the year that MGM went to all-talkie production and this movie demonstrates their lack of ease with the new medium. In addition they saddled themselves with a lot of sequences shot on the water, always a risky proposition -- although the ship was likely at the docks.

Meanwhile this production is afflicted with all the stereotypical problems of early sound productions: a static camera, unnatural-sounding sound with a lot of hiss and badly directed dialogue. Even if you discount these problems, this story of how brutish purser Louis Wollheim seizes control of a yacht after it is wrecked in the storm lacks interesting characters. Each character can be defined in a sentence. The interesting parts of the movie are the sailors trying to deal with the storm as it swamps the yacht; and Kay Johnson checking on the badly injured Conrad Nagel. Those, however, are clearly shot MOS. The rest of the movie makes use of cuts where a moving camera would have been better.

MGM clearly figured this movie to be a greater success than it turned out and its failure pretty much ended the career of Kay Johnson and knocked Conrad Nagel out of the leading man category. Louis Wollheim survived and prospered off his next movie, the great ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. If the MGM brass thought this movie would propel them firmly into the sound era, they were sadly mistaken.

The Ship from Shanghai (1930)

** (out of 4)

Squeaky, early talkie from MGM has a bunch of rich, spoiled people (including Conrad Nagel and Kay Johnson) out on a yacht when the crew, led by Louis Wolheim, decide to overtake it and have some fun on their own. THE SHIP FROM SHAGHAI has three familiar faces but sadly the end result is pretty lame and it's "C" level production makes you feel as if you're watching a poverty row studio instead of someone like MGM. What's interesting about this film is that it seems to have a message to get across but sadly the characters are just so deadly dull that it never really happens. I'm sure there's a message saying that the rich shouldn't be snobs and I'm sure the writers enjoyed having these poor crew members seek revenge but to me there was just a bunch of stereotypes and very little else. There's a romance involving Nagel and Johnson that never goes anywhere and the amount of screen time devoted to it is just weak. There are a lot of scenes with Wolheim sounding off about a variety of issues but it adds up to nothing. In fact, I'm really not sure what's up with Wolheim's performance but it's certainly a strange one. At times he appears to be acting drunk while at other times he comes across mentally slow. I'm not sure what they were trying to do with his character but it never really worked. Fans of the stars might want to check this out just to see them in early roles but sadly the film really doesn't do much but thankfully it only lasts 67-minutes.