Shanghai Express (1932)

I hadn't seen a '30s picture in more than half a year. Incidentally, that one also depicted East Asians in a way that wouldn't fly today. But this one was far more esteemed in the West back in the day, nominated for Academy Best Picture, awarded Best Cinematography, and remade twice, with neither remake as successful.

Most of the story does indeed take place on a Chinese train, where more than half the shown passengers are international. Captain Harvey (Clive Brook), British military surgeon, is on his way to operate on the governor-general of Shanghai when he discovers his old flame on board: Madeline (Marlene Dietrich), who's since made a name for herself as "Shanghai Lily." This being pre-Code Dietrich, you can guess her reputation. They're still sorting out how to feel about each other when things go wrong for the train as a whole, thanks to the Chinese Civil War....

Those two may be especially central to the plot, but don't get the impression that the film spends little of its 82 minutes on the others. Hui Fei (Anna May Wong) accompanies Lily, suggesting a similar line of work, and bombastic Rev. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant) scorns them both. Chang (Warner Oland) has a rather sardonic view of China yet laments that he is not of pure Chinese blood. Mrs. Haggerty (Louise Closser Hale) is fussy about luxuries and tries to smuggle her little dog into a passenger car. Sam Salt (Eugene Pallett) is pretty sour in part because no one will accept a bet with him. German Eric Baum (Gustav von Seyffertitz) deals opium and worries terribly about his health. And Major Lenard (Emile Chautard) appears to speak only French where nobody else can. Some of these folk offer little more than a hint of comic relief.

If Oland's name rings a bell, the Swedish-American played Charlie Chan until he died and Sidney Toler took over. That casting may be the most controversial thing about the film by modern standards. The other Chinese characters seem OK, even if they speak Cantonese where Mandarin would be more likely. It's worth noting that several of the foreigners are openly bigoted, but that's not played as a positive trait.

Of greater concern to me was the pacing. IMDb describes it as tight, in keeping with the intended train-like rhythm, but I kept thinking it uneven: Some parts should have been faster or slower. It didn't do a great job of building and releasing tension for me. Indeed, I hardly felt any emotion strongly, even when the characters clearly did with good reason. Not much seemed to happen overall.

I guess the somewhat cumbersome cast divided my attention and the hard-to-like characters diluted my sympathies. Or maybe it's just hard for today's viewers to like early talkie dramas, which didn't have many giants' shoulders to stand on. I've seen relatively few Oscar nominees from that era, and not just because some haven't made it to DVD.

SE doesn't top The Champ in my book, but I might put it ahead of Grand Hotel and The Smiling Lieutenant. I expect to see one more of the eight nominees of that anemic year, One Hour with You.