Shanghai Express
Short description
Set during the Chinese Civil War, Shanghai Express follows a train journey from Peking to Shanghai whose passengers include a notorious woman known as Shanghai Lily. Among them is a British doctor, Donald Harvey, whom she once loved. When rebels stop the train and take Harvey hostage, Lily is drawn into a bargain to save him, with the other travellers' motives and secrets adding further tension to the journey.
Josef von Sternberg directed the film from a screenplay by Jules Furthman, with Adolph Zukor producing for Paramount. It followed The Blue Angel, Morocco and Dishonored in the director's filmography and came before Blonde Venus the same year. Marlene Dietrich plays Lily, Clive Brook plays Harvey, and Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Eugene Pallette and Lawrence Grant are among the twenty-four credited cast members.
Released in 1932 and running eighty-two minutes, the film is rated 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb from around twelve thousand votes and 7 out of 10 on TMDB from a few hundred votes. A critics' rating of 8.3 out of 10 from sixty-eight reviews places it above both audience scores. Across crime, drama, history, romance and war, it remains an early sound-era Hollywood production built around the Dietrich and von Sternberg partnership.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film involved 1,000 extras.
- The extras in the film mostly speak Cantonese Chinese (which is mainly used in southern China). If the filmmakers had paid more attention to authenticity, the extras would have spoken Mandarin Chinese, but most of the Chinese people from Los Angeles and its surroundings who were employed as extras spoke Cantonese, so von Sternberg had to accept this.
- Director Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969) wanted the film's style to reflect the rhythm of a train journey. This explains the speed at which the plot unfolds and the fragmented dialogues, separated by pauses.
- The film was initially banned in China, and its removal from international distribution was even demanded. The ban was lifted only after assurances and guarantees from Paramount Pictures that they would not film any more movies about Chinese politics.
- Marlene Dietrich recalled in her memoirs that almost the entire film was shot by Josef von Sternberg, although Lee Garmes ultimately received the “Oscar” for cinematography.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
