Shanghai Express (Von Sternberg, 1932): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.40pm
This film, also screening on July 11th and 16th, will be introduced by writer and season curator Kazuo Ishiguro and is part of the 'Station to Station: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Top Ten Train Films' season. Full details here.Chicago Reader review:
More
action oriented than the other Dietrich-Sternberg films, this 1932
production is nevertheless one of the most elegantly styled. The
setting, a broken-down train commandeered by revolutionaries on its way
to Shanghai, becomes a maze of soft shadows and shifting textures,
through which the characters wander in a philosophical quest for
something—anything—solid. The screenplay, by Jules Furthman and an
uncredited Howard Hawks, has a quality of wisecracking wit unusual in
Sternberg's films: when someone asks Dietrich why she's going to
Shanghai, she retorts, "To buy a new hat."
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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