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Shanghai Express Reviews
Shanghai Express is the kind of film you watch with an understanding of the conventions of the time when it was made (and of course, that business is business), or you’re better off giving it a miss.
...contains exceedingly little in the way of compelling attributes or forward momentum...
All aboard the Shanghai Express, everybody! ... It's one grand ride of an hour and 20 minutes -- a ride that is melodramatically entertaining and highly artistic.
Marlene Dietrich's haunting and elusive charm pervades Shanghai Express.
The device of numberless swift kaleidoscopic shots is, of course, not new. But the vibrancy and freshness of treatment must be credited to the direction of Josef von Sternberg.
You can feel the whole thing surging forward like a mighty steam-roller, vivid and exciting, beating headlong into a stirring crescendo that tinkles notes of accented harmony.
Louise Closser Hale and Eugene Pallette have engrossing bits and Anna May Wong contributes a mysteriously and darkly drawn character sketch. And Miss Dietrich, as I have intimated, dominates the whole shebang -- and does it gloriously.
Shanghai Express is a finely made and finely played- picture and stands out, head and shoulders over the other cinemas of the week.
From this point on the plot turns on time-worn melodramatic situation, but this is handled so cleverly and acted with such competence by [the cast] that it nevertheless holds attention.
The picture itself ranks high among the really artistic creations that the screen has put forth -- and this through the uncanny direction of Josef von Sternberg, who has vitalized it into something far removed from the ordinary.
The Dietrich, like the telephone and the radio and the talkie Itself, is one of the modern marvels of a mechanical age, and every film she makes brings some new gadget of voice or gesture or make-up to add to her already incredible efficiency.
To those who bear on their hearts "Marlene" the picture is one not to be missed. Others will find it reasonably entertaining.
Brook is charmingly English. Miss Wong has tremendous appeal. Pallette and Miss Hale provide the laughs -- many and good ones -- and Oland is the bad man of the piece.
The contributory characterizations by Lawrence Grant, Louise Closser Hale, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Emile Chautard and Anna May Wong are as nearly perfect as they can be.
Von Sternberg, by sheer hypnosis, chicanery, or what you will, continues to make every gesture, every spoken monosyllable, seem momentously important to the welfare of his pictures.
If it were not for this anti-climax, Shanghai Express would be one of the greatest pictures ever made. [Dietrich] is more beautiful than ever, and Mr Brook, Mr Warner Oland and Miss Anna May Wong all give convincing performances.
If you want a lot of film for your money, stay through to the end. If you prefer quality to quantity, get up when they fade out the scene of Anna May Wong playing solitaire.
Anna May Wong... who achieved such fame on the London stage, was easily the outstanding performer in the cast.
That suffices for the plot. The real merit of the picture lies in von Sternberg's deft work and the sharp characterizations of the passengers. Never does the director let the camera grow listless.
Shanghai Express is distinctly out of the beaten track. It is novel, romantic entertainment of the most appealing type.