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Shanghai Express
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OverviewAI-generated
Shanghai Express is a 1932 American drama and romance film produced by Paramount Pictures. Josef von Sternberg directed the movie, with Jules Furthman writing the screenplay and Adolph Zukor serving as producer. The cast includes Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Clive Brook, and Warner Oland. The film was released in February 1932 and runs for 82 minutes.
The story follows a beautiful temptress who rekindles an old romance while attempting to escape her past during a train journey. The film is presented in black-and-white and features original languages including English, French, German, and Yue Chinese. It is associated with the Pre-Code Hollywood movement and the film-noir genre.
Shanghai Express received an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. It was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. The production team included James Wong Howe and Lee Garmes as directors of photography, Frank Sullivan as editor, and Hans Dreier as production designer. The film holds a rating of 7.3 on IMDb and a vote average of 7 on TMDb.
Synthesized by Vinony from 37 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
7.0A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
Cast
- Marlene Dietrich as Shanghai Lily
- Clive Brook as Captain Donald 'Doc' Harvey
- Anna May Wong as Hui Fei
- Warner Oland as Mr. Henry Chang
- Eugene Pallette as Sam Salt
- Lawrence Grant as Reverend Carmichael
Themes
- prostitute
- rape
- china
- shanghai, china
- rebel
- ex-lover
- insurgence
- chinese civil war
- black and white
- beijing, china
This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
Key facts
- Directed by
- Josef von Sternberg
- Screenplay by
- Jules Furthman
- Based on
- "Sky Over China" (also known as "China Pass") , by Harry Hervey
- Produced by
- Adolph Zukor
- Starring
- Marlene Dietrich , Clive Brook , Anna May Wong , Warner Oland
- Cinematography
- Lee Garmes
- Edited by
- Frank Sullivan
- Music by
- W. Franke Harling , Rudolph G. Kopp
- Distributed by
- Paramount Pictures
- Release date
- February 12, 1932 ( 1932-02-12 )
- Running time
- 80 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Box office
- $1.5 million (worldwide rentals)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Genre
- romance film
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- Yue Chinese
- Movement
- Pre-Code Hollywood
- Director
- Josef von Sternberg
- Screenwriter
- Harry Hervey
- Cast member
- Willie Fung
- Composer
- W. Franke Harling
- Producer
- Adolph Zukor
- Production company
- Paramount Pictures
- Cinematographer
- Lee Garmes
- Narrative location
- Shanghai
- Duration
- 80
- FilmAffinity ID
- 720686
- Distribution format
- video on demand
- Image
- Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932) by Don English (cropped).png
Show 13 more facts
- publication date
- 1932-02-12
- film editor
- Frank Sullivan
- title
- Shanghai Express
- nominated for
- Academy Award for Best Picture
- color
- black-and-white
- production designer
- Hans Dreier
- distributed by
- Netflix
- costume designer
- Travis Banton
- executive producer
- Adolph Zukor
- Commons category
- Shanghai Express (film)
- assessment
- Bechdel test
- review score
- 96%
- aspect ratio (W:H)
- Academy ratio
Sources (15)
via Wikidata · CC0
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Shanghai Express is a 1932 American pre-Code film about a group of train passengers held hostage by a warlord during the Chinese Civil War. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong and Warner Oland. The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman based on a 1931 short story by Harry Hervey. Shanghai Express was the fourth of seven films that Sternberg and Dietrich created together.
The film was released during the midst of the Great Depression. It was remade as Night Plane from Chungking (1943) and Peking Express (1951).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Shanghai Express” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.