Shanghai Express

As any reader of Sax Roehmer knows, the main trade of Shanghai is skulking about and plotting about international intrigues. So any picture with "Shanghai" in its title has quite a chore to prove itself worthy of the exotic name.

Shanghai Express fully justifies its title. For one thing, the action mostly takes place aboard a train of the same name running between Peiping and Shanghai. But more important, it is a film full of violence, some intrigue, snappy dialogue, and Marlene Dietrich. The last asset is generally enough to make any film worthwhile. This particular one, made when techniques were beginning to reach their present excellence, and way before Miss Dietrich became the least touch faded, shows her a really lovely woman. Every once in a while director Joseph von Sternberg took lengthy close-ups of her for no more reason than that he figured most moviegoers wouldn't mind having the story interrupted for a close-up of Miss Dietrich. Decisions like this one made von Sternberg a great director.

When the camera is not particularly concerned with demonstrating how nice Miss Dietrich looks in all types of lighting, it is busy recording a fairly exciting story, and, more important, showing a wide variety of interesting people. The hero is the type of terse, firm-chinned British officer that has been holding down forts against irresistible odds for generations.

Clive Brook plays this pukka sahib version of Marlon Brando with a skill that makes "stiff upper-lip" an entire facial expression.

Among the other passengers is a half-caste rebel leader whose troops hold up the train, at which point he begins to work his sweet, if greasy, will upon Miss Dietrich and her Oriental business colleague, Anna May Wong. Miss Dietrich's trade name is "Shanghai Lily," indicating what sort of business it is.

When troops are not being machine-gunned, young ladies not being violated and Clive Brook not being fantastically cool as he thrashes some bounder, the rest of the passengers take up the slack with much interesting chatter. There is a nice old lady who may, or may not, be a madame, depending on the viewer's state of mind, a disgraced French officer, an American gambler, a missionary, and an unpleasant German opium dealer. All these help make Shanghai Express a picture that, although it begins slowly, chugs its way into a lot of excitement and interest.