S5E8: Shanghai Express, 1932

Shea Cinema: The Best Picture Project

Today we go over director Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, and Werner Oland. Based on a real-life incident of train passengers taken hostage in China, the story vacillates between a dramatic action film and a searing love story. Rife with plenty of intrigue (prostitution, drug smuggling, civil war, rape, murder), Shanghai Express is a feast for the eyes. It also grapples with racial tension/prejudice, some of it unintentional, as Werner Oland, a Swedish actor, plays a half-Chinese villain.
Our history timeline features a bizarre and unsettling platonic love triangle between the Pope, Gandhi, and Mussolini, but top song of the day is an absolute bop!
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