Shanghai Express (film)
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| Shanghai Express | |
|---|---|
| Image:208518.1020.A.jpg original film poster | |
| Directed by | Josef von Sternberg |
| Produced by | Adolph Zukor |
| Written by | Jules Furthman |
| Starring | Marlene Dietrich Clive Brook Anna May Wong |
| Cinematography | Lee Garmes |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Running time | 80 min. |
| IMDb profile | |
Shanghai Express is a 1932 movie of the Pre-Code era starring Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong and Warner Oland. It was written by Jules Furthman and Harry Hervey, and was directed by Josef von Sternberg.
It was American-born director Sternberg's third of seven vehicles he would make with new German sensation Marlene Dietrich, Blonde Venus to follow later in 1932. Now after two years in Hollywood, Dietrich was ranked by a Picturegoer magazine poll as the third top female star, behind only Greta Garbo and Constance Bennett, and ahead of theatre superstar Ruth Chatterton, then known as "Queen of the Paramount Lot", and MGM's Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford.
After the fad for heavy European accents faded in Hollywood during the 1932-33 box-office year, Garbo and Dietrich's popularity dipped markedly in America though remaining the premier attractions in most of the rest of the moviegoing world for the rest of the thirties.
Unlike the other Sternberg films of exquisite style, which treated Dietrich as a clothes horse of unassailable mystique, Shanghai Express had a strong plot which appealed to the mass US audience. This difference apparently explained why it was Dietrich's biggest hit ever in America, and a studio record for Paramount in the still-young talkie era, making a clear profit of $3 million -- more than most blockbusters took in gross through the Depression era.
The film is memorable for it's stylistic black and white chiaroscuro cinematography, especially the exquisite north light to profile Dietrch. Even though Lee Garmes is credited with the cinematography, according to Dietrich, it was Sternberg who directed most of the cinematography.
[edit] Awards
The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and won for Best Cinematography (Lee Garmes).
[edit] Plot
The story concerns the many travelers on a train through China as the country undergoes a civil war. The express train to Shanghai travelling cross country is raided by Warlord Henry Chang (Warner Oland). Henry quickly comes to claim notorious prostitute Shanghai Lily (Dietrich) as his booty from the raid. A British officer, also her former lover, played by English actor Clive Brook, best known as Sherlock Holmes and now coming towards the end of his starring career, tries to save her. Anna May Wong's intense performance as a prostitute who murders her rapist was believed by many critics to have eclipsed Dietrich's, and the two leading ladies never worked together again.
Shanghai Express was remade in 1942 as Night Plane from Chungking, and in 1951 as Peking Express.
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