Synopsis
A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
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Cast
- Marlene DietrichShanghai Lily
- Clive BrookCaptain Donald 'Doc' Harvey
- Anna May WongHui Fei
- Warner OlandMr. Henry Chang
- Eugene PalletteSam Salt
- Lawrence GrantReverend Carmichael
- Louise Closser HaleMrs. Haggerty
- Gustav von SeyffertitzEric Baum
- Émile ChautardMajor Lenard
- George BlagoiMinor Role (uncredited)
Recommendations
- 100
TV Guide Magazine
A mystical and exotic story of love and destruction, a film for which both star and director became legends. - 88
LarsenOnFilm
Marlene Dietrich is in full plume in Shanghai Express, literally and figuratively. - 80
The New York Times
It is by all odds the best picture Josef von Sternberg has directed. - 80
Time
The atmosphere which Director von Sternberg cleverly built up through the slow beginning of the picture and the brilliant photographic effects achieved by his camera man, Lee Garmes, have effect of giving this melodramatic cliché a reality which it could not possibly achieve in a medium less persuasive than the cinema. - 80
Empire
Intriguing and visually atmospheric melodrama with Dietrich doing her sultry thing. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Of all the Josef von Sternberg-Marlene Dietrich films, this Oriental thriller may be the most sinfully pleasurable and amusing. [15 Sep 1991, p.6] - 75
Chicago Reader
More action oriented than the other Dietrich-Sternberg films, this 1932 production is nevertheless one of the most elegantly styled. - 70
Time Out
Von Sternberg, who was forever looking for new kinds of stylisation, said that he intended everything in Shanghai Express to have the rhythm of a train. He clearly meant it: the bizarre stop-go cadences of the dialogue delivery are the most blatantly non-naturalistic element, but the overall design and dramatic pacing are equally extraordinary.
