Shanghai Express

Screening: 30 May, 6:30pm

USA
1932

Director: Josef von Sternberg
Production co: Paramount
Screenplay: Jules Furthman.
Based on a story by Harry Hervey
Cinematography: Lee Garmes
Editor: Frank Sullivan
Shanghai Lily: Marlene Dietrich
Doc Harvey: Clive Brook
Hui Fei: Anna May Wong
Henry Chang: Warner Oland
Sam Salt: Eugene Pallette
Reverend Carmichael: Lawrence Grant
Mrs Haggerty: Louise Closser Hale
Eric Baum: Gustav von Seyffertitz
Major Lenard: Emile Chautard
80 mins
B&W
16mm (4:3)
PG cert

The fourth of the Josef von Sternberg-Marlene Dietrich collaborations, Shanghai Express is a mystical and exotic story of love and destruction, a film for which both star and director became legends. The film begins at the Peking Railroad as the Shanghai Express is being boarded and loaded with baggage. En route to Shanghai is a mixed assortment of characters, including Dietrich, a lady of questionable reputation known as "the White Flower of the Chinese coast"; Clive Brook, a British Medical Corps officer; Warner Oland, a shady half-caste merchant; and Anna Mae Wong, an American-bred Chinese prostitute with plans for starting anew in marriage. The time of the journey is one of great political unrest, with the possibility of bands of rebels attacking the train looming large.

Dietrich, as always, gave von Sternberg the exact performance he had envisioned, but feuds and hard feelings ran rampant between the director and the remainder of the cast. Von Sternberg was something of a tyrant on the set, and actors received the brunt of his wrath. This enthusiasm and complete control over the production paid off for the director and for Shanghai Express come Oscar time. The film was nominated for Best Picture (losing to Grand Hotel), von Sternberg received a nomination for Best Director (his second in a row), and Lee Garmes walked away with a statuette for his cinematography.

TV Guide

Internet Movie Database listing

Marlene.com

preceded by:

Tell-Tale Heart

USA
1941

Director: Jules Dassin
20 mins
16mm

Adaptation of Poe's short story, by the director of Rififi

A fourth film version of The Tell-Tale Heart, an Oscar-winning short, proved to be a subtly effective dramatisation of Poe's story... Joseph Schildkraut played the obsessed murderer and director Jules Dassin saw to it that the action stemmed from the emotional conflicts of the central character... His mental states were well-painted by cinematic tricks - a log pan ending in a close-up of the blind eye; the dripping of a faucet and ticking of a clock turn into the muffled sounds of the beating of the old man's heart.

Robert C. Roman, Films in Review, 10/61

Internet Movie Database listing