Shanghai Express (1932) - film review

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...

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

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