Shanghai Express is a finely made and finely played- picture and stands out, head and shoulders over the other cinemas of the week.

| Oct 21, 2022

Brook is charmingly English. Miss Wong has tremendous appeal. Pallette and Miss Hale provide the laughs -- many and good ones -- and Oland is the bad man of the piece.

| Oct 21, 2022

Von Sternberg, by sheer hypnosis, chicanery, or what you will, continues to make every gesture, every spoken monosyllable, seem momentously important to the welfare of his pictures.

| Oct 21, 2022

If it were not for this anti-climax, Shanghai Express would be one of the greatest pictures ever made. [Dietrich] is more beautiful than ever, and Mr Brook, Mr Warner Oland and Miss Anna May Wong all give convincing performances.

| Oct 21, 2022

That suffices for the plot. The real merit of the picture lies in von Sternberg's deft work and the sharp characterizations of the passengers. Never does the director let the camera grow listless.

| Oct 21, 2022

No matter how slowly Mr. von Sternberg may unfold his story his artistic perception is always evident, his handling of detail is masterly and his films fairly bristle with imaginative effects.

| Oct 21, 2022

Marlene Dietrich. who did not acquire the name of Shanghai Lily by loving but one man, gives a brilliant performance and wins much sympathy for the character she portrays.

| Oct 21, 2022

Directed by Josef von Sternberg, this movie has style -- a triumphant fusion of sin, glamour, shamelessness, art, and, perhaps, a furtive sense of humor.

| Oct 21, 2022

Amazingly beautiful as to photography, and effective as to characterization, Shanghai Express... proved to be a striking photoplay of varying excellence.

| Oct 20, 2022

Dietrich is fabulous throughout, indecently charismatic, and clearly relishes delivering raw knuckle dialogue...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 15, 2022

Nothing in an admirable film is better than the first meeting between Lily [played by Marlene Dietrich] and Hue Fei (Miss Anna May Wong).

| Jul 8, 2020

The first third of Shanghai Express is on a high artistic plane. One forms great expectations of dramatic development; of character-study; of technical finesse. But suddenly the whole thing collapses.

| Apr 3, 2020

Peak Dietrich merging with peak von Sternberg... Each artist and their respective styles coming together to create something distinct and dazzling.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 23, 2019

The film has compensating strength in the star, who photographs more beautifully than before and, though she is acted off the screen by Anna May Wong, shows herself unique in Hollywood by being majestically beautiful.

| Sep 6, 2018

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.

| Feb 2, 2011

Josef von Sternberg, the director, has made this effort interesting through a definite command of the lens. As to plot structure and dialog, Shanghai Express runs much too close to old meller and serial themes to command real attention.

| Jun 6, 2008

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.

| Jun 24, 2006

It is by all odds the best picture Josef von Sternberg has directed.

| Jan 28, 2006

More action oriented than the other Dietrich-Sternberg films, this 1932 production is nevertheless one of the most elegantly styled.

| Jan 1, 2000

Intriguing and visually atmospheric melodrama with Dietrich doing her sultry thing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2000