Shanghai Express

1932, USA, Josef von Sternberg, 82 min.

With Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, and Anna May Wong

“It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.”

Possibly the best of the Hollywood collaborations between director Josef von Sternberg and actress Marlene Dietrich, Shanghai Express is an opulent romantic adventure that focuses on a diverse group of passengers traveling by express train from Peking to Shanghai during a Chinese civil war. Among them is Captain Doc Harvey (Clive Brook), who finds himself reunited with his former lover, now an infamous adventuress who calls herself Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich). Desire and deception escalate when their train is hijacked by a Chinese warlord.

We’ll be screening another von Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration, The Blue Angel, on December 4.

“Miss Dietrich gives an impressive performance. She is langourous but fearless as Lily. She glides through her scenes with heavy eyelids and puffing on her cigarettes” —Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times (1932)