SHANGHAI EXPRESS (1932)

The most sheerly enjoyable of the Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich series*, the film (shot ‘31/released ‘32) also deserves credit for putting paid to Early Talkie technique, particularly in its opening sequence, an astonishment of design, pace, studio artifice and sharp characterization. After the silent-to-sound transition, it’s back to Moving Pictures with a Capital ‘M.’ The story, slight but serviceable, opens as a motley group of First-Class ticket-buyers in Peking board the Shanghai Express amid a rising political revolution. Sure enough, half-Chinese mystery passenger Warner Oland takes them all hostage, stopping the train and watching old & new relationships come to the boil. Top of the list is a past one between Clive Brook's doctor and Dietrich’s notorious Shanghai Lily. An item five years ago, their renewed passion soon put to the test when Dietrich is forced to sacrifice honor for safety, and discovers that faith (religious or otherwise) has its limits. Heavenly nonsense, fast, funny and intensely glamorous , with off-the-charts wow factor in gorgeous physical presentation and Jules Furthman’s spare badinage. And in Brook, one of the few performers with insouciance to match La Dietrich whose looks here are in perfect harmony between her softer early look and the more severe abstraction to come. There’s a modest falloff in the last reel once we hit Shanghai (the studio may have noticed since they suddenly start up a wan background score), but until then this is just about perfect.

DOUBLE-BILL: *The films in brief: Brutish BLUE ANGEL; Romantic MOROCCO; Self-regarding DISHONORED; Dashing SHANGHAI EXPRESS; Ludicrous BLONDE VENUS; Baroque SCARLET EMPRESS; Masochistic DEVIL IS A WOMAN. 1930 - 1935, all essential. OR: Frank Capra, who seconded Sternberg’s modern pacing in AMERICAN MADNESS and followed it with something of his own SHANGHAI in THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, both ‘32.