Shanghai Express
Tags: revenge, avant garde, murder

Plot synopsis:
In 1931, China is embroiled in a civil war. Friends of British Captain Donald "Doc" Harvey (Clive Brook) envy him because the fabulously notorious Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich) is a fellow passenger on the express train from Beiping to Shanghai. Since the name means nothing to him, they inform him that she is a "coaster" or "woman who lives by her wits along the China coast" – in other words, a courtesan. On the journey, Harvey encounters Lily, who turns out to be his former lover, Magdalen. Five years earlier, she had played a trick on Harvey to gauge his love for her, but it backfired and he left her. She frankly informs him that, in the interim, "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." When Lily makes it clear that she still cares deeply for him, it becomes apparent that his feelings also have not changed, and he shows her the watch she gave him with her photograph still in it.
Among the other passengers are fellow coaster Hui Fei (Anna May Wong), Lily's companion; Christian missionary Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant), who at first condemns the two "fallen women"; inveterate gambler Sam Salt (Eugene Pallette); opium dealer Eric Baum (Gustav von Seyffertitz); boarding house keeper Mrs. Haggerty (Louise Closser Hale); French officer Major Lenard (Emile Chautard) and a mysterious Eurasian, Henry Chang (Warner Oland).
Chinese government soldiers board and search the train and apprehend a high-ranking rebel agent. Chang then makes his way to a telegraph office and sends a coded message. Later, the train is stopped and taken over by the rebel army and its powerful warlord, who turns out to be Chang. Chang begins to question the passengers, looking for someone important enough to exchange for his valued aide. He finds what he wants in Harvey, who is on his way to perform brain surgery on the Governor-General of Shanghai. Chang offers to take Shanghai Lily to his palace, but she claims she has reformed. When Chang refuses to accept her answer, Harvey breaks in and knocks him down. Because Chang needs Harvey alive, he swallows (but does not forget) the insult. Chang then has Hui Fei brought to him in his quarters, where he forces himself on her.
The government releases Chang's man, but Chang decides to blind Harvey for his insolence. Out of love, Lily offers herself in return for Harvey's safe release. Harvey remains unaware of the danger he is in and Lily's reason for going with Chang. Chang is stabbed to death by Hui Fei who tells Harvey what has transpired. Finding Lily, the trio boards the train and depart before the body is discovered. The missionary Carmichael, trusting his instincts, gets Lily to reveal the truth about saving Harvey. She insists that he not enlighten Harvey, because love must go hand in hand with faith. When the train finally reaches Shanghai safely, Lily offers Harvey her love unconditionally, but demands the same in return. Harvey finally breaks down and embraces her.

Review: In this fourth teaming of the Svengali-like director and his Trilby of a star  Marlene Dietrich  they reach the zenith of their legendary collaboration and strike a template for the kind of movies America would do best and like best: voluptuous hybrids of adventure and intrigue, romance and raffish fun.Leaving for Shanghai to operate on the stricken British Consul-General, army physician Clive Brook climbs aboard only to find the woman he loved but lost five years ago (Dietrich).
Now, however, she goes by another appellation; as she explains, in the script's most emblematic line, `It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.'  Her presence on the train, and that of one of her sisters-in-sin (Anna May Wong) is cause for scandal and indignation among the other passengers: prim boarding-house proprietress Louise Closser Hale (with her pooch Waffles smuggled on board); sputtering man of the cloth Lawrence Grant; sardonic gambling man Eugene Pallette; a Frenchman; a German; and the inscrutable, pre-Charlie Chan Warner Oland.Soon, China being embroiled in a civil war, they have more to worry about than Dietrich's morals.
The storyline is basically a broken romance seeking to be healed between Clive Brook and Dietrich or "Shanghai Lily," the naughty lady who has sold her body the past few years to keep herself in glittery costumes and furs.The real "story" is "Dietrich and von Sternberg visit China" on some movie lot, on their way from or to Russia (The Scarlet Empress), Spain (The Devil is a Woman), North Africa (Morocco), or somewhere in the U.S.
Among the passengers, the British Captain Donald "Doc" Harvey (Clive Brook) that is traveling to operate the Vice-Governor of Shanghai; the courtesan Hui Fei (Anna May Wong); the Reverend Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant); the boarding house owner Mrs. Haggerty (Louise Closser Hale); the French Major Lenard (Emile Chautard); the dealer Eric Baum (Gustav von Seyffertitz); and the local Mr. Henry Chang (Warner Oland).
Out of the blue, Captain Harvey stumbles with the notorious courtesan Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich), who is a "coaster" ("a woman that travels along the China coast with her wealthy clients"), and he recognizes her as her former lover Magdalen.
"Shanghai Express" is a great Pre-Code Film with magnificent performances of the gorgeous Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong.
The supporting cast is equally good: Warner Oland as a sly Eurasian; Eugene Pallette as a jovial American gambler; Lawrence Grant as a grumpy old English missionary; Gustav von Seyffertitz as an invalid German with a dangerous secret; Emile Chautard as an elderly French Major with a hidden past; and wonderful old Louise Closser Hale as a feisty American widow who runs `the best boarding house in Shanghai.'Paramount put a lot of money into this pre-Production Code adventure drama, which has an exciting plot, good acting & plenty of romance.
It was also lovingly photographed from beginning to end, everyone and everything gleaming in a by turns savage and erotic dreamlike world.During the Chinese Civil War and travelling on the Peiping-Shanghai Express ("where time and life have no meaning") are a disparate band of Westerners plus a couple of enigmatic natives  all sadly lacking in moral fibre except Clive Brooks who has too much of it.
He's still in love with Marlene Dietrich whom he ditched 5 years and 4 weeks before thus unwittingly turning her into Shanghai Lily the notorious coaster - a woman living on the coast of China by her "wits"  which is a bit of a serious problem to the upright Britisher even though she still loves him.
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.
One of Marlene Dietrich's most popular films from her early period with Joseph Von Sternberg was Shanghai Express.
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.
Always enjoy films from the 1930's and especially this one, which stars Marlene Dietrich,(Shanghai Lily),"Touch of Evil",'58, who looks very young and trim and plays a woman who has been around the block quite a few times.
Lily is still in love with a long lost lover and she once again gets involved with him on the "Shanghai Express", along with quite a few other characters on the mysterious train ride.
This is one of the most moving stories ever depicted on film (compare, too, with Nicholas Ray's "In a Lonely Place," which tells a similar tale of misunderstandings that destroy a deep love -- without the happy ending that is so welcome in "Shanghai Express.") All the supporting players brilliantly portray their variously flawed characters, and the direction is simply breathtaking.
Joseph Von Sternberg directed this film about a group of passengers traveling via train during a Chinese civil war.
It stars Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brooks, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Eugene Palette and Lawrence Grant.
Kopp and cinematography by Lee Garmes.Plot finds Shanghai Lily (Dietrich) meeting up with old flame Donald Harvey (Brooks) aboard the Shanghai Express during the Chinese Civil War in 1931.
However, this train has many passengers with secrets to hide, so when some rebels ambush the train, such things as loyalties, friendships, hidden motives and the birthing of legends come to the fore.Stylishly crafted by Sternberg and brisker than the other collaborations with Dietrich, Shanghai Express thrives on atmospheric visuals, strong scripting and a sultry turn from the leading lady.
However the love-story is ridiculously unbelievable, since Clive Brook is too wooden in his performance and Marlene Dietrich is too much of a femme fatale.The movie is further more a good looking one, with especially some nice Oscar winning cinematography.
You bet."Shanghai Express" is actually one of the best movies they made together - its almost pity that it had Dietrich in it, because it has interesting story that could have been made differently and used group of passengers on a train as a point towards adventure/thriller.
As the train rushes towards the danger, these random characters could turn movie into "Murder on a Shanghai Express", alas that was not Sternberg's intention - he under uses the talented group of supporting actors just to build a platform for Dietrich and her love interest (incredibly wooden and cranky Clive Brook, who is completely unbelievable as love of her life).
Classic Hollywood meets Mao. Josef von Sternberg gives us an accurate description of the civil war in China of the 1930's in addition to superb performance of Dietrich and Clive Brook makes the movie very enjoyable to watch.A simple love story evolves to suspense theme which enable us to experience the complicity of this civil war, the Nationalist, the Communist and the Westerners amid them.
Marlene Dietrich is Shanghai Lily on the "Shanghai Express" in this 1932 film directed by Josef von Sternberg.
Clive Brook was an actor of the stiff upper lip school, and he was unbelievably wooden.Nevertheless, with Warner Oland as Henry Chang, one of the evil Chinese and Eugene Palette as a passenger on the train, this is a very good, highly atmospheric film.
She speaks least of all, which by Sternberg's camera magic makes her presence and acting only the more expressive in its deep impression.Clive Brook may be wooden and expressionless, but it's a joy to hear his perfect diction and wonderful voice, not really up to Ronald Colman, who came later, but a good prelude to all the great swashbucklers that would follow.It's perhaps both Marlene's and Sternberg's best film, he never succeeded better in bringing the best out of her than here, and on the whole it's a fascinating film and story, which could teach anyone a lot - for all ages..
'Shanghai Express' is arguably the greatest of the seven films that featured the collaboration of Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg.
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..
Marlene Dietrich's fourth out of seven collaborations with director Josef Von Sternberg is among her best in films and performances and one of her better collaborations with Sternberg.Dietrich herself is one of 'Shanghai Express' selling points.
And "Shanghai express" was made with and about love as well; directed by the great Josef von Sternberg and starring one of the most controversial but not less talented actresses of the era, phenomenal Marlene Dietrich.
Dietrich never was a complete a unanimity, she was too controversial all the time, his double face which she had assumed by herself nor woman, neither men, bring to his own personal image a dubiouness, in this fabulous movie from sternberg who stolem were a colorful characters, as a cold revolucionary leader played by Warner Oland, a compulsive gambler by the great Eugene Pallette, a dishonored french soldier by Emile Chautard, a old grumpy german as disguised drug dealer, Mr. Carmichael a sort of faith man and finally an old lady who is a real staunch supporter of the good customs, in other hand a fancy well dressed Marlene living in another world as Shanghay Lily obviously a woman of an easy life, the main characters are the supporting casting, we must forget the absence of Clive Brook, masterfully photographed on shadows and lights on glorious black & white!!!Resume:First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.
This one has her starring as Shanghai Lily, a notorious "worldly" woman whose mysterious exterior hides a heart of gold, and who's willing to sacrifice herself to save the man she loves (unbeknownst to him).The previous year's "Morocco," also directed by Josef von Sternberg, brought Dietrich her only Oscar nomination, but "Shanghai Express" was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and it won the Oscar for Lee Garmes' cinematography.
This movie is beautifully photographed, and Von Sternberg's care in highlighting Marlene Dietrich (as the infamous Shanghai Lily) is evident in almost every frame.
A train ride through exotic China during a Civil War and involving a trainload of disparate passengers is the stuff for Josef von Sternberg to turn into a showcase for his favorite star, MARLENE DIETRICH.
Never has he captured the Dietrich magic the way he has here, featuring her as Shanghai Lil, a notorious woman viewed with suspicion by the other passengers--a motley bunch if ever there was one--and engaged in a love affair with CLIVE BROOK (the only bad performance) in his typical wooden style.The photography by Lee Garmes won an Oscar, crisply detailed B&W images captured in shadow and light and capturing all the bustling activity and atmosphere of a very colorful story.Aside from Dietrich's feisty and alluring performance as the dazzling Shanghai Lil, the cast includes ANNA MAY WONG, EUGENE Palette and WARNER OLAND as the cruel war lord who meets a cruel fate.Probably the high point of Dietrich's collaboration with von Sternberg and well worth viewing.Trivia note: Excuse the spelling of Eugene's name.
One of the lesser Von Sternberg Dietrich teamings Shanghai Express has an excellent look (lensed by Lee Garmes and James Wong Howe) but chugs ponderously along with an ultra reserved performance from Clive Brook that stops the film in its tracks.
Von Sternberg's habit of sacrificing story in favor of Dietrich's allure at least had Gary Cooper (Morrocco, Dishonored) to balance screen magnetism or an actor the stature of Herbert Marshall capable of being convincingly vulnerable where Brook is merely a fleshed out version of Dudley Doright.On board the express we have the usual assortment of pompous hypocrites, elitists and neophytes new to adventure getting their clichés punched but also the enigmatic presence of Anna Mae Wong who adds to the films eroticism and capable of distracting the viewer from Marlene.
Taking the train from Peking to Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War poses problems for beautiful Marlene Dietrich (as Magdalen) and accompanying passengers.
Their chance to rekindle old romance is complicated by both her past and the encroaching war, which eventually infiltrates the train.Josef von Sternberg's "Shanghai Express" is a very good-looking production.
******* Shanghai Express (2/2/32) Josef von Sternberg ~ Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong.
SHANGHAI EXPRESS (Paramount, 1932), under the direction by Josef Von Sternberg with a star-studded cast headed by protégé, Marlene Dietrich, is a story set on a train where passengers gather together for a journey from Peking to Shanghai that gets attacked by rebels fighting a civil war during its destination.
The people include: Henry Chang (Warner Oland), a Eurasian merchant; Sam Salt (Eugene Palette), a gambler; Mrs. Haggerty (Louise Closser Hale), a dowager who runs a boarding house in Shanghai traveling with her little dog, Waffles; Eric Baum (Gustav Von Seyffertitz), a dope-smuggling invalid; Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant), a missionary; Colonel Lenard (Emile Chautard), a discharged French officer wearing his uniform so not to have his sister learn of his disgrace; Hue Fei (Anna May Wong), an American Chinese girl with a questionable reputation as with the infamous Madeleine, known to all as "Shanghai Lily" (Marlene Dietrich), and Captain Donald Harvey (Clive Brook), a British officer in the Medical Corps on his way to treat a patient who happened to have been Madeleine's lover five years ago.
Who could forget Dietrich's manner of slow speaking when she tells Donald Harvey (Clive), "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." With this being Dietrich's fifth under Von Sternberg's direction, SHANGHAI EXPRESS became their only collaboration for which it earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Picture.
Remarkably, given the limitations of black and white film, Von Sternberg left some beautiful images (to this day) of the actress who may have been the most beautiful one in motion picture history.SHANGHAI EXPRESS is set in the China of the Warlord period (as was THE GENERAL DIED AT DAWN).
They include Dietrich, Anna May Wong (her best recalled talkie performance, as the bride to be Hui Fei), Clive Brook, Lawrence Grant, Eugene Palette, Warner Oland, Louise Closser Hale, Gustav Von Seyfertitz, and Emil Chautaud.
Here, however, Wong does take a major role, that of the "coaster" Hui Fei, and makes the most of it.This was one of seven films which Dietrich made together with director Josef von Sternberg, and gives an excellent performance.
Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich), aka Madeleine, meets up again with chilly former lover Dr. Donald "Doc" Harvey (Clive Brook), and they push around the old story of their separation.
It has some camera angles and scenery which are several years ahead of where other film makers were at this time.Marlene Dietrich is outstanding in this film as Shanghai Lily, the woman whose reputation gets in her way.
For having the excellent cast that was put together for the movie, the director did not get the best of the likes of Anna May Wong, Eugene Palette, Warner Oland and the rest of the supporting players.Mr. Von Sternberg was more successful with the technical aspect of the film because of the work of Lee Garmes, with the uncredited James Wong Howe clearly helping to enhance the way the audience perceived the movie.