Shanghaï Express

One of Marlene Dietrich's most popular films from her early period with Joseph Von Sternberg was Shanghai Express. In fact her portrayal of the notorious Shanghai Lily is the main reason for watching this film today.

Set in Kuomintang China, the film concentrates on a group of train passengers making a journey from Peking to Shanghai. These are the white passengers all heading for their extraterritorial enclaves on the China coast and a couple of richer Chinese. One of them is Warner Oland who is a seemingly respectable Chinese merchant, but actually a notorious warlord leader a group that Chiang Kai-Shek has sworn to exterminate. In fact during this period his government was doing just that.

Oland is best known for playing Chinese detective Charlie Chan, but he's not dispensing fortune cookie wisdom here. He's a most menacing figure who when he's revealed holds all the lives of the passengers in his hands. The other Oriental in this group is well to do prostitute Anna May Wong. She and Dietrich find themselves kindred spirits and are shunned by the other passengers.

It's a reunion of sorts for Dietrich, another of the passengers is Clive Brook a British army doctor who is on his way to China to perform a delicate operation on a big shot. He and Dietrich were once involved, but when he dumped her, she took the road that made her the notorious Shanghai Lily.

The main weakness of Shanghai Express in fact is Brook. He's such a cold fish drip of a man, I can't see how Dietrich and he could ever have been involved. The film would work a lot better if the role had been cast with someone of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr's charm. Still Brook proves the old flame hasn't quite died down and in fact it hasn't for Marlene either.

Other characters on the train are Lawrence Grant as a reverend Davidson type missionary, Louise Closser Hale as an old American dowager, Emile Chautard as a disgraced French Army officer, Gustave Von Seyfertitz as a hypocritical opium dealer, and Eugene Palette as a crass American businessman as only Eugene Palette can play them. They provide quite a cross section of the western powers who were nibbling on the Chinese body politic at the time.

Shanghai Express won an Oscar for Cinematography and was in the running for Best Picture that year, losing to Grand Hotel which has a lot of similarities to this film. Dietrich is unforgettable as Shanghai Lily and this is a must for her fans.

SHANGHAI EXPRESS is an excellent film from 1932 that stars Marlene Dietrich but also benefits from a strong ensemble cast. In other words, while Dietrich is an important part of the film, she isn't THE film and supporting actors also help to make this a good film. I like this because too often in her early films all the weight of the movie rested on how sexy and alluring Dietrich's characters were supposed to be--and to me, this got very old after a while. It helped here, though, that Dietrich's usual angular and severe looks are a bit less pronounced (as was the case in her very early Hollywood films). Here, she plays "a woman of ill-repute" (a prostitute) but there are many others that give the film life as well--making this film a bit like GRAND HOTEL on the rails! This film has the distinct honor of being one of the only films in which Warner Oland plays an Asian yet this isn't necessarily insulting to real Asian actors. That's because Oland was Swedish-born and often played Asians (such as Charlie Chan)--while qualified Asians were relegated to supporting roles! However, in this film, his character is supposed to be half-Chinese and half-Western--so the casting wasn't a bad idea at all.

Apart from Oland and Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Clive Brook, Lawrence Grant and Eugene Palette, among others, are on hand to provide some color. Ms. Wong, in particular, had some excellent scenes playing a Chinese prostitute and defender of the Chinese Republic (a strange combination, I know).

As far as Grant goes, his was a truly unusual character. His Reverend Mr. Carmichael was odd because initially he came off as such a prudish and self-righteous jerk--so much so that the studio was forced to re-write his character and soften him up some as to avoid offending religious sensibilities of the audiences. However, by changing a few scenes, they made him one of the most unusual and three-dimensional minsters portrayed in film during the era. How he came to actually like and respect Dietrich (the prostitute) may seem a bit silly to some, but I actually liked the way they re-wrote the film. As a result, of all the passengers, Grant's came off as perhaps the most interesting.

As far as the film goes, in addition to good performances, the writing, direction and cinematography were all exceptional. A top-notch film that sure will keep your interest as you follow this train through rebel territory in China.

About the only negative about the film might be that it promotes the old film cliché of "the prostitute with a heart of gold"--in fact, it has this times two! Just once, I'd like to see a film where the prostitute isn't so glamorous (perhaps with a few herpes scabs) and isn't a nice person after all!! Imagine if PRETTY WOMAN had followed THAT formula!!

Fourth out of seven Dietrich-von Sternberg's collaborations, SHANGHAI EXPRESS confirms with Hollywood's habitually insensitive appropriation of exotic stories, this time, the victim is a civil war-ridden China, the entire film sets during the treacherous journey of the titular express, chugging from Beijing to Shanghai, but apparently, von Sternberg cannot lay his hands on finding enough Mandarin-speaking extras, so all the Chinese bit players are sporting Cantonese with a weird accent that even confounds this reviewer's Chinese ears, and some of them are occasionally being manhandled unceremoniously, notably in an earlier scene by a miffed Charlie Chan, no, actually it is Henry Chang (Oland), an Eurasian warlord of Chinese rebellions with a costly price tag on his head.

Essentially, the movie is Ms. Dietrich's star vehicle, kit up with astounding sartorial creations from Travis Banton, and looks gorgeously photogenic under von Sternberg's meticulous coordination, she plays a courtesan named Shanghai Lily, of all people, she chances upon her ex-lover, British Captain Donald "Doc" Harvey (a stiff upper-lipped Brook) on the express, while the pair's romance duly begins to rekindle, Chang and his rebellious rabble hijacks the train and detains Doc as a valuable hostage, soon, it falls to two women's hands to take the situation out of jeopardy, one is Shanghai Lily, who acquiesces to Chang's commander for the sake of Doc's safety, another is her companion, a Chinese working girl Hui Fei (a piercing-looking Wong, the first Chinese-American star in Hollywood), who successfully lands on her feet after a vengeful assassination.

Sardonically, the rest western passengers are more or less one-note laughing-stocks, casual scorn is cast upon an opium merchant and self-professed "invalid" Eric Baum (von Seyffertitz), a priggish Reverend Carmichael (Grant) and a congenital bettor Sam Salt (Pallette), whereas Henry Chang is accountable for all the contempt, conversely it is the gamble of love and faith that transpires after its torpid escape hubbub, and it is Shanghai Lily's clandestine repentance finally softens the film's cynical temperament and veers into the usual trajectory of a cheesy romance, but what an extravaganza is on show, von Sternberg's expressionistic idiom would totally normalize the standards we view movies even today, whether it concerns narrative cohesion, the marshaling of a huge set, or spectacular montage arrangements, no wonder audience at that time could rapturously fall under his spell, SHANGHAI EXPRESS is the highest grossing movie of 1932, even today, it demands our collective gaze.

I have a soft spot in my heart for movies about trains and about other modes of transportation as well, but there's something very special about a train when it is properly handled for the cinema. I could go through a very long list of films featuring trains that I love and that were produced over a long span of time, but I won't, and you'll thank me for that. I've added this gem to the top of that list, or at least near the top.

Despite the fact that the entire film is produced in either a Hollywood lot or a train depot in San Bernardino, I feel that I am in China during very turbulent and dangerous times. Thanks to the special skills of director Josef von Sternberg, the prevailing sense of impending peril is very strong. Warner Oland, although not even half Chinese, is very convincing as the menacing rebel leader. The rest of the cast is excellent as well. Both Dietrich and Brook project an outward appearance of stiffness and toughness to the dangerous world around them, but we learn along the hazardous and uncertain journey that their exterior façade is nothing but a thin disguise, and there lies a very vulnerable humanity deep within both of them. Dietrich gives another one of her many fascinating performances, full of psychological complexity. I love her.

I don't understand all of the harsh criticism of Clive Brook among the user reviews here that he is too wooden and mechanical. That is exactly the way he was supposed to play the role of a military doctor living in a world full of danger and of extreme hostility that is specifically aimed at him and his uniform. If we watch him closely, we will observe the decent, compassionate man behind the uniform. I thought that Dietrich and Brook make a smashing couple, especially when their outward and superficial veneer crumbles before our very eyes. This is good stuff!

The beautiful and mysterious Ana May Wong also provides complexity and depth to her deceiving, outward impression as Lily's courtesan companion, Hui Fei. Again, we must not judge Hui Fei based on her exterior demeanor alone because deep within her lies a very brave and determined dedication to her country and to her society. Her exchanges with Mrs. Hegarty (Louise Closser Hale), the prim and proper boarding house owner, are most entertaining. I'm usually not focused on hairdos, but check these out, especially Hegarty's. Holy mackerel.

As you will see, none of the characters are what they seem to be at first glance. That is only part of what intrigues me about this movie. Please don't miss this extraordinary train, which only leaves the station on rare occasions. If you don't appreciate the ride as much as I do, you can always get off when the next cow decides to wander into its path but, considering the danger lurking in every direction, you will probably be safer on it than off it. Be forewarned and sit tight until the end. You won't be disappointed.

I saw this movie a long time ago and parts of it really stuck with me, but I couldn't even remember the name until I came across it recently. I think, part of the effect of the movie was the sultry Marlene Dietrich, but what I didn't realize is that this movie is so full of atmosphere and rich in texture that it stays with you no matter who is in it. To be honest, most of the acting in this film is pretty wooden. Dietrich rises above all others with her ability to convey her feelings through the camera. More than anything, this film's look and feel are what really make this film work; and to some degree the lighting and directing aid Dietrich's acting. Joseph Von Sternberg directed this film about a group of passengers traveling via train during a Chinese civil war. The passengers all have their own stories, but none is as interesting as the story of Shanghai Lilly (Dietrich) and her romance with the British officer Captain "Doc" Harvey (Clive Brook). Von Sternberg uses light and shadow to highlight different characters and the character's feelings long before anyone else used this technique to such a large degree. There are marvelous images of Dietrich, Anna May Wong and Warner Oland as a rather mysterious and possibly sinister train passenger that really make this movie click. Film students should be required to see this movie for the simplicity of the story and the complexity of the filming. I'd like to say no scene is wasted, but there are a couple scenes that seemed extraneous. Overall though, this is a classic movie that was way ahead of it's time. I wasn't really familiar with Von Sternberg until I went back and watched this movie again. Now I own the DVD and I watch it periodically to remind myself of Dietrich's allure and Von Sternberg's masterful direction.