A notorious woman rides a train through a dangerous situation with a British captain she loved.A notorious woman rides a train through a dangerous situation with a British captain she loved.A notorious woman rides a train through a dangerous situation with a British captain she loved.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 1 win & 2 nominations total
George Blagoi
- Minor Role
- (uncredited)
Leonard Carey
- Carey
- (uncredited)
George Chung
- Chinese Soldier
- (uncredited)
Wong Chung
- Chinese Officer Checking Passports
- (uncredited)
Jack Deery
- British Officer at Shanghai
- (uncredited)
Herbert Evans
- British Railway Officer
- (uncredited)
Bess Flowers
- Undetermined Secondary Role
- (uncredited)
Willie Fung
- Train Engineer
- (uncredited)
Tom Gubbins
- Chinese Officer
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe extras in the film mostly speak Cantonese - a Chinese dialect used mainly in southern China. If the film were to be more accurate, the extras would speak Mandarin, but most Chinese residents in the Los Angeles area (who worked as film extras) spoke Cantonese, necessitating Josef von Sternberg use Cantonese. Even so, Cantonese was one of the main languages of China at the time. It was nearly the national language, losing to Mandarin by only one vote in 1912. It was unsettled in popular culture during the 1930s. https://www.scmp.com/article/694592/cantonese-almost-became-official-language?campaign=694592&module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article
- GoofsThe film is set in northern China (Peking to Shanghai). The government and warlord soldiers are speaking Taishanese, which is a southern Chinese dialect not generally spoken in northern China. The northern dialects of Mandarin Chinese (a Beijing dialect) and/or Shanghainese would be spoken instead.
- Quotes
Reverend Mr. Carmichael: Can you tell me what's wrong now?
Mr. Henry Chang: You're in China now, sir, where time and life have no value.
- Alternate versionsComments in the AFI Catalogue suggest the credits were changed when re-released in 1935. According to the Catalogue, the original print referred to Harry Herveys work as a novel. In the viewed print on TCM, the onscreen credit was "story." The print was clearly a re-released print because of the PCA certificate number listed onscreen; such numbers were not issued until 1934. It is not known what other changes were made, if any, but the print ran only 82 minutes, suggesting some additional editing had been done.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Without Regret (1935)
Featured review
"It Took More Than One Man To Change My Name To Shanghai Lily"
One of Marlene Dietrich's most popular films from her early period with Joseph Von Sternberg was Shanghai Express. In fact her portrayal of the notorious Shanghai Lily is the main reason for watching this film today.
Set in Kuomintang China, the film concentrates on a group of train passengers making a journey from Peking to Shanghai. These are the white passengers all heading for their extraterritorial enclaves on the China coast and a couple of richer Chinese. One of them is Warner Oland who is a seemingly respectable Chinese merchant, but actually a notorious warlord leader a group that Chiang Kai-Shek has sworn to exterminate. In fact during this period his government was doing just that.
Oland is best known for playing Chinese detective Charlie Chan, but he's not dispensing fortune cookie wisdom here. He's a most menacing figure who when he's revealed holds all the lives of the passengers in his hands. The other Oriental in this group is well to do prostitute Anna May Wong. She and Dietrich find themselves kindred spirits and are shunned by the other passengers.
It's a reunion of sorts for Dietrich, another of the passengers is Clive Brook a British army doctor who is on his way to China to perform a delicate operation on a big shot. He and Dietrich were once involved, but when he dumped her, she took the road that made her the notorious Shanghai Lily.
The main weakness of Shanghai Express in fact is Brook. He's such a cold fish drip of a man, I can't see how Dietrich and he could ever have been involved. The film would work a lot better if the role had been cast with someone of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr's charm. Still Brook proves the old flame hasn't quite died down and in fact it hasn't for Marlene either.
Other characters on the train are Lawrence Grant as a reverend Davidson type missionary, Louise Closser Hale as an old American dowager, Emile Chautard as a disgraced French Army officer, Gustave Von Seyfertitz as a hypocritical opium dealer, and Eugene Palette as a crass American businessman as only Eugene Palette can play them. They provide quite a cross section of the western powers who were nibbling on the Chinese body politic at the time.
Shanghai Express won an Oscar for Cinematography and was in the running for Best Picture that year, losing to Grand Hotel which has a lot of similarities to this film. Dietrich is unforgettable as Shanghai Lily and this is a must for her fans.
Set in Kuomintang China, the film concentrates on a group of train passengers making a journey from Peking to Shanghai. These are the white passengers all heading for their extraterritorial enclaves on the China coast and a couple of richer Chinese. One of them is Warner Oland who is a seemingly respectable Chinese merchant, but actually a notorious warlord leader a group that Chiang Kai-Shek has sworn to exterminate. In fact during this period his government was doing just that.
Oland is best known for playing Chinese detective Charlie Chan, but he's not dispensing fortune cookie wisdom here. He's a most menacing figure who when he's revealed holds all the lives of the passengers in his hands. The other Oriental in this group is well to do prostitute Anna May Wong. She and Dietrich find themselves kindred spirits and are shunned by the other passengers.
It's a reunion of sorts for Dietrich, another of the passengers is Clive Brook a British army doctor who is on his way to China to perform a delicate operation on a big shot. He and Dietrich were once involved, but when he dumped her, she took the road that made her the notorious Shanghai Lily.
The main weakness of Shanghai Express in fact is Brook. He's such a cold fish drip of a man, I can't see how Dietrich and he could ever have been involved. The film would work a lot better if the role had been cast with someone of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr's charm. Still Brook proves the old flame hasn't quite died down and in fact it hasn't for Marlene either.
Other characters on the train are Lawrence Grant as a reverend Davidson type missionary, Louise Closser Hale as an old American dowager, Emile Chautard as a disgraced French Army officer, Gustave Von Seyfertitz as a hypocritical opium dealer, and Eugene Palette as a crass American businessman as only Eugene Palette can play them. They provide quite a cross section of the western powers who were nibbling on the Chinese body politic at the time.
Shanghai Express won an Oscar for Cinematography and was in the running for Best Picture that year, losing to Grand Hotel which has a lot of similarities to this film. Dietrich is unforgettable as Shanghai Lily and this is a must for her fans.
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- bkoganbing
- May 10, 2009
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- El expreso de Shanghai
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 22 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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