All Critics (15)
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Top Critics (4)
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Fresh (14)
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DVD (8)
Shanghai Express is a picture of the new school, and when Marlene Dietrich promises Warner Oland to visit him at his castle if he will refrain from destroying Clive Brook's eyesight with a red hot poker, you will not find the situation banal.
The finished product is an example of what can be done with a personality and photogenic face such as Marlene Dietrich possesses to circumvent a trashy story.
It is by all odds the best picture Josef von Sternberg has directed.
More action oriented than the other Dietrich-Sternberg films, this 1932 production is nevertheless one of the most elegantly styled.
The bizarre stop-go cadences of the dialogue delivery are the most blatantly non-naturalistic element, but the overall design and dramatic pacing are equally extraordinary.
This is one of seven vehicles where Dietrich and Sternberg teamed-up together, and it's one of their most pleasing.
Dietrich illuminates this stylish adventure, and it remains a high point among her many collaborations with director Von Sternberg.
By some inexplicable alchemy, everything comes together in a seamless fusion that manages to create a haunting drama of love and faith that is like no other.
Intriguing and visually atmospheric melodrama with Dietrich doing her sultry thing.
Although he was working on a sound stage, [Sternberg] makes China seem claustrophobic, dirty and exotic.
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