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Shanghai Express
1932 Adventure / Drama / Romance
Review
Shanghai Express is the fourth
of eight collaborations of actress Marlene Dietrich with director Josef
von Sternberg, following The Blue Angel (1930), Morocco (1930) and Dishonoured (1931). One of
Dietrich’s best known films, Shanghai
Express is also one of the finest examples of early 1930s
American cinema, setting a standard of excellence for Hollywood
production teams for the rest of the decade. The story bears
striking similarities with the well-known Guy de Maupassant short story
Boule de suif.
Marlene Dietrich is at her most alluring and sensual in this film, perfectly cast in a role which contributed greatly to her iconic image as a calculating seductress that no man could resist. Beneath the smouldering temptress exterior, Dietrich offers just a glimpse of a far more human persona, a woman desperate to find true love and shed her shady past, at any cost. It’s a pity that her intense performance isn’t matched by her co-star, Clive Brook, whose portrayal of a strait-laced British army officer lacks warmth and charisma. Fortunately, this is more than made up for by the contributions from the supporting cast, who provide much of the film’s comedic entertainment value. The most striking aspect of Shanghai Express is the sheer artistic quality of the set design and cinematography. These not only convey the exotic Oriental location effectively (far better than any other film of this era) but also lend the film a mood of dark oppression and confinement which evidently prefigures film noir. Lee Garmes won an Oscar for his haunting and beautiful chiaroscuro photography, which owes a great deal to German expressionism, particularly in its use of stark shadows and silhouettes. The film was nominated for Oscars in two other categories, Best Film and Best Director, but won neither. The film was remade as Peking Express (1951), directed by William Dieterle and starring Joseph Cotten and Corinne Calvet, a far less satisfying work than this von Sternberg masterpiece. © James Travers 2008 Write a review for this film...User Comments
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Director:
Josef von Sternberg
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Eugene Pallette Synopsis
Amid the throng of Peking station, passengers board the crowded
Shanghai Express, blissfully unaware of the ordeal that lies ahead.
Some are appalled
to learn that they are sharing the train with Shanghai Lily, a
notorious woman of ill repute. Captain Harvey, an officer
in the British Medical Corps, recognises Shanghai Lily as his old
flame, Magdalen, but whilst she still secretly pines for him, his
passion for her has long since been quenched. Another passenger
is the half-American, half-Chinese businessman Henry Chang, who turns
out to be the leader of a band of rebels who are intent on driving
China into a protracted civil war. Chang’s rebels seize control
of the train and take the passengers prisoner. Chang interrogates
the passengers to decide which of them would make the best hostage to
coerce the Chinese government into releasing one of his officers.
He selects Captain Harvey...
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