Shanghai Express

USA 1932

Dir: Josef von Sternberg

82 mins

Cast:  Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong

Rating: PG

Josef von Sternberg’s (Dishonored/Morocco/The Blue Angel) highly entertaining and atmospheric adventure/love story is set aboard the titular train. It is uniquely shot so that all the action and dialogue simulates the train rhythms. Sternberg’s highly stylized film also comes with an earnest emotionally charged love story and his trademark snappy dialogue, that plays against the dangerous train journey from Peking to Shanghai. It also offers innumerable deceptions that hide the real identities and feelings of those mysterious characters aboard. The clever script is by Jules Furthman and an uncredited Howard Hawks; it’s based on a story by Harry Hervey. The striking and memorable photography is by Lee Garmes. This is one of seven vehicles where Dietrich and Sternberg teamed-up together, and it’s one of their most pleasing.

... Sternberg’s film is a valentine for the magical intrigues of love and sex. It also uncovered hypocrisy among the passengers and how they are forced to bond together when faced with common danger, while also giving it depth and sincerity to a familiar love story between opposites in a refreshing manner that not too many other Hollywood films succeed in doing.

It was nominated for Best Picture.

Dennis Schwartz, Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Perhaps no director better understood how to utilize the heightened artificiality that the soundstage allowed than Josef von Sternberg. In Shanghai Express, perhaps his most conventional film, he uses his impeccable technique to greatly enhance what might have been in lesser hands fairly routine drama.  In a Sternberg film, the sheer amount of visual information that the director asks us to process acts as an indicator that the emotions and motivations of the characters are never as simple as they might appear. He layers and filters light, bending it to reflect the unspoken possibilities that the script doesn’t articulate. In this setting, a gauzy tapestry can remove certainty from even the most assertive monologue. In Shanghai Express, the titular train itself becomes a perfect visual metaphor for the brand of claustrophobic compression that Sternberg specializes in. Its windows offer a glimpse at openness that taunts its passengers. It only moves forward along its tracks; never backward. The characters here are in a state of arrested transition, put in a place where they are forced to contend with both their disappointing pasts and uncertain futures, and every lavishly adorned shot Sternberg includes comments on this emotional stasis. Before long, the paralysis becomes literal as the train is held, forcing the resolution of the tensions that have mounted along its journey. As the actors move through the maze of a train, a series of sliding doors, and other improbably varied décor they move closer to realizations that will shape their views of romantic devotion. ...

Jeremy Heilman, moviemartyr.com

... Despite showing its age, via the attitudes and modes of behaviour, Shanghai Express is a movie with great heart. Dietrich is stunning as usual, and captivatingly photographed, but also acts well too, combining the worldly-wise lady with the naive, loving girl to perfection. This is a story of character, exploring the intrigues of sex, love and power in the confines of a railway car (mostly) and exposing hypocrisy. From another angle, this is a tale of strangers discovering their shared interests and working together towards triumph, ending up as friends. Whichever viewpoint you take, the story contains a lot of fine acting which goes a long way to giving everyone some depth, despite the slightness of certain roles. It's all rather enjoyable, in a camp way, and surprisingly exciting. Well worth seeking out.

Damian Cannon,Movie Reviews UK 1997