Shanghai Express

Josef von Sternberg, Paramount, 1932. Marlene Dietrich is Shanghai Lily, riding the Peking-Shanghai train with a wartime mix of passengers; Clive Brook is the officer who knew her when she had another name. Anna May Wong is Hui Fei, who shares the compartment and the trouble when a warlord (Warner Oland) stops the train. Lee Garmes’s smoke and slats won an Oscar. Wong’s part is the one the plot actually needs in the last reels. Eighty-two minutes. Dietrich is the poster. The express is a corridor of people who have already chosen sides.