Le Dernier Train de Shanghaï

Anita Ekberg, hot off her success as the childishly self-centered movie queen "Sylvia" in Federico Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA, is billed above the title in the kind of corn "Sylvia" might have made. The pre-credit narration tells us it's 1959 and guerrilla forces are making it tough for the Chinese but although it's never said, the rebels are obviously Communists, but only because a sickle & star painted on one of their huts tells us so. Today we know how it all turns out but things were still up in the air when this "ripped from the headlines" yarn was lensed. The topical tale proper begins on a train where Anita, a Christian missionary (!), meets a boozy newsie (Georges Marchal) who's traveling to the dam on Yellow River after getting wind of a plot to blow it up. He wants to be there with his camera when it happens and doesn't care that millions will be washed away but he has a change of heart after falling in love with Ekberg and tries to foil the rebel plot...

The superbly stacked Glamazon may have her cascading blonde locks pinned up throughout the film but have no fear, she chucks those Clark Kent glasses and lets her hair down ...but only once, alas, all sans cleavage. Anita also performs surgery on a peasant girl who got stabbed and takes a stab at acting while she's at it in a shudder-inducing fit of hysterics. It's a WTF film for sure, ludicrous in the extreme, but widescreen and Technicolor -and the Ek, of course- make it awfully nice to look at.

It is set in 1949 , during the waning days of the Chinese civil war and after the end of Second Chinese-Japanese War. As the Chinese Communist Revolution started from 1946, and there was a second part of the Chinese Civil War. It was the culmination of the Chinese Communist Party's drive to power after its founding in 1921. In the Chinese media, this period is known as the War of Liberation Victory of Mao . It deals with a drunk and sensationalist journalist (Georges Marchal) who attempts to get a scoop and to be aware an ominous plan that will launch his career. Aboard a train the reporter meets a beautiful doctor of a Protestant mission (Anita Ekberg) , a nun , Sister Celeste (Franca Bettoia ) , and a suspicious as well as powerful Chinese (George Wang) . Then , things go wrong when the train is attacked .

Moving thriller/adventure flick in anti-Communist propaganda trending , it contains drama , emotion, thrills and violents happenings as the woman's lynching . It is seen through the eyes of a boozy American journalist , played by the French Georges Marchal , reporting from the Nationalists'side , as he carries out a dangerous journey by train until the Yellow River where happens some sad events . His parternaire is the bombshell Anita Ekberg who was elected Miss Sweden in 1950. She did not win the Miss Universe contest but she got a modeling contract in the United States . She quickly got a film contract with Howard Hughes's RKO that did not lead anywhere. Instead, she started making movies with Universal, small roles that more often than not only required her to look beautiful. After five years in Hollywood,where shot some films , such as 4 for Texas, Way way out , Woman times seven , The alphabet murders , she returned herself in Rome, where Federico Fellini's La dolce vita (1960) meant her breakthrough . She stayed in Italy and made around 20 movies during the next ten years, some roles memorable, some to be forgotten . During the 1970s, the roles became less frequent, but she made a marvellous comeback with Fellini's Interview (1987) .Anita Ekberg retired from acting in 2002 after 50 years in the motion picture industry until her death at 83. The movie packs an evocative cinematography by Enzo Serafin , shot in Cinecitta studios and in Oriental locations. And an atmospheric and stirring musical score by Guido Robuschi and Gian Stellari . The motion picture was professionally directed by Renzo Merusi .He was an actor , director and writer, known for Deserto di fuoco (1971),La figlia di Mata Hari (1954) and Né de père inconnu (1950) .

The film is based on historical events during the Civil War, 1945-1949 . These are the following ones : The Communist Party of China was founded in 1921. After a period of slow growth and alliance with the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), the alliance broke down and the Communists fell victim in 1927 to a purge carried out by the Kuomintang under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. After 1927, the Communists retreated to the countryside and built up local bases throughout the country and continued to hold them until the Long March. During the Japanese invasion and occupation, the Communists built more bases in the Japanese occupied zones and relied on them as headquarters .The Nationalists had an advantage in both troops and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population, and enjoyed broad international support. The communists were well established in the north and northwest. The best trained Nationalist troops had been lost in early battles against the better equipped Japanese army and in Burma, while the communists had suffered less severe losses. The Soviet Union, though distrustful, provided aid to the communists, and the United States assisted the Nationalists with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of military supplies, as well as airlifting Nationalist troops from central China to Manchuria, an area Chiang Kai-shek saw as strategically vital to retake. Chiang determined to confront the PLA in Manchuria and committed his troops in one decisive battle in the autumn of 1948. The strength of Nationalist troops in July 1946 was 4.3 million, of which 2.2 million were well-trained and ready for country-wide mobile combat.On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek, 600,000 Nationalist troops, and about two million Nationalist-sympathizer refugees retreated to the island of Taiwan. After that, resistance to the Communists on the mainland was substantial but scattered, such as in the far south. An attempt to take the Nationalist-controlled island of Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Kuningtou. In December 1949 Chiang proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan the temporary capital of the Republic, and continued to assert his government as the sole legitimate authority of all China, while the PRC government continued to call for the unification of all China. The last direct fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces ended with the communist capture of Hainan Island in May 1950, though shelling and guerrilla raids continued for a number of years. In June 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War led the American government to place the United States Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to prevent either side from attacking the other .