Shanghai Express

One of the greatest collaborations between Josef von Sternberg and star Marlene Dietrich unfolds aboard the plush environs of a trans-continental train.

  • Director

    Josef von Sternberg

  • With

    Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Clive Brook, Warner Oland

  • USA 1932. 82min

  • Digital 4K

  • Certificate

    PG

‘It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily,’ Dietrich tells a naïve Englishman aboard an express crossing a China teetering on revolution and civil war. In this, the mother of all train movies, even the star power of Dietrich and Anna May Wong at their peak is almost upstaged by von Sternberg’s stunning chiaroscuro images.

The screening of Shanghai Express on Thursday 2 July will be introduced by writer and season curator Kazuo Ishiguro.