RAMBLES Part II

[JackFavell]

Maven, I am so sorry for all the things I did to yo.......um, I mean that your little bro and sis put you through!

 

I didn't know when I was telling on you for stealing the raisins that you would take it so hard.

 

I am so glad you are giving MMG another chance.... I hope it plays better for you this time through.

 

P.S. I love what you wrote about Gail Patrick. She was just gorgeous, and I wish she had had a chance to break through with one juicy leading role, where she didn't play an ice queen. I think her voice is thrilling, and her delivery is divine.

[movieman1957]

There is no ground so hallowed here that one can't share their thoughts. It helps make for good discussion. If I contributed to that feeling then I apologize.

[CineMaven]

Okay...apology (sort of ) accepted. My growth as a cine-maven was almost stunted by my sister who told my parents I had the tv on late at night (the volume low and the brightness darkened). I don't know HOW many movies I must have missed on the Late Late Show after THAT debacle!

 

Raisins??!! Seeee...Look, just give me your sister's phone number so she and I can commiserate. (You probably hid the key to the strawberries bin from Bogart too).

[JackFavell]

Ha! Yessss.. ... it was me..... (sound of diabolical laughter)

 

My older sis used to sit up at night, in the top bunk bed, and she would position her dresser mirror so she could see down the hallway right to the TV. I could never watch from my position in the lower bunk, so one night I went and told on her, cause she was being bad.

 

Sure I did it. I knew my mom would give me raisins if I told. Yup. I did it for the raisins.

[CineMaven]

Oh my goodness, Jackie.

 

JackaaaAaaay!!

 

You sold out your sister...your own flesh and blood, for raisins.

 

RAISINS!!! Well...

 

You know you've got to do penance. Yeah, I'm sayin' it: penance. I need to read your thoughts on "Brainstorm" and "I Walk Alone." You'll never be able to make it up to your sister, but maybe...vicariously through me...through some film reviews you can patch up the pieces of your torn relationship.

 

Good call by the way on the Ray Liotta - Jeffrey Hunter connection! (I'd throw in a little Tony Curtis too!)

[JackFavell]

> {quote:title=CineMaven wrote:}{quote}Oh my goodness, Jackie.

>

> Jackaaa*A*aaay!!

>

> You sold out your sister...your own flesh and blood, for raisins.

>

> *RAISINS!!!* Well...

>

> You know you've got to do penance. Yeah, I'm sayin' it: penance. I need to read your thoughts on "Brainstorm" and "I Walk Alone." You'll never be able to make it up to your sister, but maybe...vicariously through me...through some film reviews you can patch up the pieces of your torn relationship.

 

 

 

 

I expect the mail is slow right now...I'm expecting my copy of *Brainstorm* sometime in the next week. I watched I Walk Alone two weeks ago, and I have another agonizing confession to make......

 

h5. I liked Wendell Corey best.

[CineMaven]

P.S. Lastly, I keep meaning to ask you...give me the name of five of your favorite actors. (No one too obscure though). I just need to know for something. Who are five men that you like?

 

Thanx!

[JackFavell]

This is the best I've liked Wendell. He really made me like him, which is saying A LOT, since he is at the top of my "WHA? That guy's a movie star?" list. Plus I just realized his initials spell out the french term for bathroom. I thought he really did some pure film acting, like you said, with a lot of pathos. I felt so sorry for him, and somehow he got to me for the first time in a movie.

 

Help me! I don't want to like Wendell Corey!

 

Favell's Five Favorite Film Fellas:

 

1. William Powell

2. Ben Johnson (Is he too obscure? I'll substitute someone else)

3. Charles Boyer

4. Gary Cooper

5. Jimmy Cagney

[CineMaven]

"WHA? That guy's a movie star?"

 

Yeah, Wendell. So different in "...Thelma Jordon" and "Desert Fury" and "Sorry Wrong Number" and "Harriet Craig" and "Rear Window" or "The Furies." He's probably underrated but he's not in the category of John Hoyt:

 

"WHA? WHY IS THAT HEAD ON THAT BODY?! ACK!!"

 

I want to see if I can make a Tribute video for you of one of your favorite actors...that is IF I have enough DVDs to honor your guy. It'll take me a while...a long while to put it together. And it'll distract me from dealing with my real life: (Mom.....my apartment...etc). I might have to combine these guys 'cuz I don't think I have enough of one guy to make you go ga-ga. If there are any other heart throbs on your list, let me know.

 

Ooooh, by the shadows on the ground I see it's after three o'clock and l must prepare to consume libations. But I have my iPOD Touch with me to see all the shenanigans going on here and at the Oasis (just gave my take on "BRAINSTORM" f.y.i.). So it looks like time for me to skedaddle.

[JackFavell]

Shoot! I knew I should have recorded it. I'm going to go start watching now.

[MissGoddess]

That scene near the end (in the water) always makes me cry. It's a movie that reminds me a little of *Harvey*.

[rohanaka]

You're in bigger trouble than you think. I'm not that big on Irene, too.

 

EEK! It's a world gone mad, I tell ya!! WHAT oh what will I ever do??? ha.

 

But what I do like about her is what Miss G and Jackie mentioned. I do like her love for Godfrey

 

I do confess.. I like that she stuck to her guns, once she was determined to be his. She fell for him and she fell all the way. It was very sweet.. and yet..

 

she just happens to be extremely childish in her ways of trying to "obtain" Godfrey's love. Godfrey is basically a doll to Irene. She wants her dolly

 

That is where it started to go "south" for me in terms of liking her. She just became almost "4th grade" in her antics.. "Some people______ and other people_______". I thought it was funny at first.. but she just kept on. (though I do confess I liked the one tantrum scene where her mom is doing everything under the sun (including getting the houseguest to act like a gorillla) just to appease her.. and then the minute it is just her and Godffrey.. she turns it off like a faucet and starts acting like a person again.. that too was funny.. at first.

 

Oh me. I am just getting myself in deeper, aint i?? ha. I will stop.ha.

 

She's a spoiled "kid." But she's pure, which makes her endearing

 

You are right on both counts. And I think I would have liked her more if she'd have had a moment near the end that was more like the older sisters where she came to her senses a bit. (Jacki did address this in one of her posts, but I still wanted more "substance" to it all. Because she sort of DID come to her senses very early on about how wrong it was for her family to play the awful "scavenger hunt" game, etc. So she DID have some inteligence and a truly lovely heart it would have seemed. But I guess for me, all the tantrums for "dramatic effect" and "head in the clouds" childish romping around was just so overdone, I kept forgetting what sort of mind and heart was really in there.

 

What's funny with me is that I LOVE when Carole plays childish, selfish girls. I like it when she is angry. I like it when she's "kicking." I love when she has a scowl. Irene is childish but she's not angry. She's mostly in the clouds. I can't see you liking a lass in the clouds

 

It just depends on how "heavy handed" it is done. I do like "dreamer" characters, so long as they still have "feet on the ground" qualities in them too. I imagine it goes back to that whole chat we had in your Torture thread about me wanting to have dreams that are realistic and reachable (so I might have a chance to actually achieve them.. HA)

 

But in a way. thinking of Irene.. I guess she DID dream w/ her "head in the clouds" and yet her dream (of finding love w/ Godfrey) did materialize for her.. so maybe I am selling those "cloud gals" a bit short. :-) (I am sure it would not be the first time, "boring realist" kinda gal that I am.. ha) I could likely take a lesson from the "cloud dreamer" crowd in that respect. :-)

 

PS: Miss Maven

I think you're pretty safe and secure on that mountaintop and also you're safely ensconced in the "family." One movie won't get you thrown out. (Oh, it's been more than one? Gulp! Dang girl, you're on your own!

 

OH silly me and my "mountaintop" moments, ha. I am just grateful that you folks put up w/ me and all MY drama! (ha) Hey, maybe I am more Irene-ish than I realized, ha.

 

I've always liked Gail Patrick. She could cut you to the quick with her eyes or with a line. Poor Gail. She usually didn't get the guy. I liked her beauty...she had a dark soulful look

 

She did, didn't she. You have described her (at least what little I know of her) to a "T" :-)

 

Now see, I really have to see the film again, because I don't remember that or the burning coals on their heads scene. When did THAT happen?

 

Spoiler alert:

Near the end of the story (by turning the other cheek, and repaying her mean-ness w/ his kindness, she was led to a repentant and completely broken hearted state over her treatment of him and is more or less totally undone by it)

 

I LOVED that part of the story, it was one of my most favorite moments. I guess I am a just a "repentance theme" junkie kinda gal. ha. (Give me a movie w/ THAT as one of the themes (even if only for a very small moment) and I am a happy, happy gal, ha)

 

PS: Ms Favell,

 

Now if you continually hated everything I liked, or were constantly on the opposite side, I might begin to feel slighted or that something was off in our relationship

 

HA. No worries on THAT, little darlin' (I only save THOSE kinda battles for certain GREY people) Ha. Plus, we are way TOO similar in so many other ways that I could never come down so completely on the opposite side of things with YOU (we ARE sisters under the "blabbage", after all, ha)

 

You never talk down to anyone here, even when some of us probably should be talked down to

 

Oh hush now, you are going to wreck my whole "Peacemaker" image! (ha) And ps, the ONLY one who ever "should" be talked down to is that grey-loving guy who is always so "anti" silly. I mean, afterall, I DO have an entire ARSENAL devoted to dealing with him and his Grey-ish ways, ha.(complete w/ Hatpins, Frozen Ropes and the like) HA. ( And HOW I ever ended up on the same side of things with him THIS time is beyond ME) ha.

 

He brings her some grounded reality that her floaty, kindly soul needs, some worldly knowledge that she has been grasping for, and an outlet for her compassion (the forgotten men). He literally "put her in the shower" - brought her down to earth. Rather than squandering all her love on a pomeranian, Irene will be able to go into the world and help Godfrey help real people

 

BEAUTIFUL. Now see THAT is where her character started to turn back around for me. I LOVED that part of the story and I like how that aspect of her character was brought back into the mix by the end of the movie. This is the hint of the real "her" that you get to see at the beginning of the movie, and then WHAMMO, it just disappears (at least for me) until the end again. I think my major issue w/ the way her character was written is that we just have to wait SO dadgum long to see that side of her from beginning to end, it is almost lost (at least for me) by the time it shows back up again.

 

I just want you to like the things I like, and vice a versa, because I like you

 

YOU are a sweetie, little youngun. (and may I say “right back at ya”, kiddo)

 

PS: Mr Movieman, If I contributed to that feeling then I apologize

 

OH no sir. It is I who owes the apology. You have never made me feel anything but happy to be your friend, so no harm done And really, shame on me for pointing a finger at IRENE, ha. I was just being a bit over "dramatic" myself in my whining about my "mountain top" moments. Ha. (gee, I WONDER where the kidling gets it?? )

 

PS: Miss G!

Dear Mountain Topper....you know I know the feeling well of being there, but you also must know how a different way of looking at things can stimulate the BEST conversations, and I'm not sure MMG would generate much discussion if you had not seen Irene as you do

 

Thank you ma'am for putting up w/ me so often and letting me "spout" while I sort things out. Ha. I DO like to explore my thoughts and ideas on movies with you folks. It is fun to see how we all think and what it is that attracts us (or not) to certain characters and ideas in a movie. It is what makes the world go around. (what was it you said?? "Vive la difference" )

 

Now, if you said you didn't like John Ford, I'd never speak to you agan

 

EEK!! Not to worry your sweet head about THAT one, little missy! That would NEVER happen, ha. Talk about a world gone MAD!! Ha

 

(Thank goodness we only see that sort of wrong headed thinking from time to Grey-ish time around here!) ha.

 

now and forever will see Hannah as a little "Irene Bullock", ha haaaaaa! Wonderful

 

HA!! Well, her family IS crazy enough. HA! So she fits the "Irene" profile in more than just being "dramatic', I guess!

 

Edited by: rohanaka on Sep 3, 2011 2:30 AM

[CineMaven]

PS: Miss Maven OH silly me and my "mountaintop" moments, ha. I am just grateful that you folks put up w/ me and all MY drama! (ha) Hey, maybe I am more Irene-ish than I realized, ha.

 

Irene-naka...I admire the courage of your convictions with your opinions. (And who am I to argue with someone who stockpiles frozen ropes...my mama didn't raise no dope!) So whether you're on the mountaintop with your head in the clouds or your feet on the ground, you're A-OK with me.

 

I've always liked Gail Patrick. She could cut you to the quick with her eyes or with a line. Poor Gail. She usually didn't get the guy. I liked her beauty...she had a dark soulful look

 

She did, didn't she. You have described her (at least what little I know of her) to a "T" :-)

 

You'll see her in the periphery of events..."Stage Door" "My Favorite Wife" for starters. I like her. I also liked the way Jackie described her:

 

"...She was just gorgeous, and I wish she had had a chance to break through with one juicy leading role, where she didn't play an ice queen. I think her voice is thrilling, and her delivery is divine."

 

Long live those beautiful character actresses...who didn't get the guy ( :-( ) but who got the great lines. ( :-) )

[JackFavell]

Ibet you liked that scene where they are doing the dishes together. I just love it, it actually makes me think of Lombard and Powell married and at home together. I agree with movieman - they still have sparks.

[CineMaven]

"SHANGHAI EXPRESS" (1932) DIETRICH, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland. Directed by Joseph von Sternberg.

 

WoW!! That train trip to Shanghai reminded me a lot of my Amtrak trip from New York City to Los Angeles for TCM's film festival. Well...maybe not.

 

The world depicted in *"SHANGHAI EXPRESS"* is far beyond anything I've ever experienced. Now to be honest, I had to get used to the cadence and artificiality of the words and gestures. There was this kind of postering and affected stylized way of speaking that was a bit off-putting. The dialogue felt written to me. It was not the way people really just spoke to each other. It didn't quite bring the movie close to me, but made me watch it at arm's length. So I did have to work a little to put all that aside and be comfortable with things...settle into 1932 and von Sternberg's world-view. But I did settle in. And doing that made me enjoy the goings on on that train.

 

The movie was so rich and full and packed with detail. von Sternberg didcreate another world. The train was a character itself, don't you think...all round and bellowing billowy steam and smoke. It looked so glamorous...and helpless when those rebels boarded it amidst the steam. There was something romantic about that train; its whistle was a plaintive cry and the locomotive sounds were a constant throughout the entire movie. (Was that my crazy little Willie Fung at the helm?) But it was the people, wasn't it? A tiny bit of "Grand Hotel." Oh I don't mean peopled with every one who was a Star...but people with ev'ry Character Type:

 

* The judgmental minister

* The disgraced military man

* The stiff-upper lipped prig

* The self-centered busybody

* The evil rapacious Other

* The stubbornly ignorant and impotent American

 

And then there is Dietrich. And it's the second time this week she surprised me.

 

"It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily."

 

Ha! And I believe it too! It is 1932 and I am trying to think of WHO was in movies at the time...trying to picture a general sense of WHO the stars of the day were; you know, those who made the transition from Silents to the Talkies. And I guess no one here in America was any thing like Dietrich or Garbo. And as much as I like Garbo... Dietrich seemed more regular...more accessible...more down to earth in her World-Weary Exoticism. I can get closer to Dietrich though I like Garbo more. But "Shanghai Express" is Dietrich's picture to rule, so I will bid adieu to Garbo for now.

 

I see why Madeleine Kahn could parody her so easily in "BLAZING SADDLES" b'cuz there's so much there that Dietrich gives you. She's so rich with personality: her poses, her looks, her accent. I love her putting both hands on one hip...I loved the gesture she made with her hands when she thanks Clive Brook for saving her. She kind of holds onto him. He says he'd do this for anybody. As he pulls away from her, watch her handwave gesture. No one can tell you to do that. It's your instinct as an Actor. When the Minister can only offer Dietrich to pray instead of him taking up arms to help Clive Brook from Warner Oland's evil clutches...I loved Dietrich's angered look. Smoke practically comes out of her nose she's so steamed. She does pray, and Von Sternberg has Dietrich in the shadows with only her clasped hands visible.

 

"One of them is yellow the other one, white. But both their souls are rotten!!"

 

And in the same sentence with Dietrich, with the same breath, and I must say carrying the same weight, I must laud the great ANNA MAY WONG. Good golly Miss Molly she was farely smoldering. I love her darkness and her deep voice. She's as sleek and beautiful as satin. When we first see her she's smoking a cigarette. PLEASE go back and take a look at the beginning of the movie when von Sternberg first introduces Anna May Wong. She's in the background while the Minister rants for a different compartment. Look at her back there, a bit in soft focus. Are you looking? With the subtle flick of her cigarette...she shows contempt. She is truly a sister under the mink with Dietrich's Shanghai Lily. They bond, unspokenly. I can't help but think back to Theresa Harris with Stanwyck in "BABY FACE" and how they were kind of on equal footing in the beginning of the movie...but not later on. I can see Wong and Dietrich tearing up the coast of China...or partying in the casinos and palaces of Monte Carlo. I see them both ordering room service and drinking champagne. I see men in top hat and tails calling on both women. I can see Dietrich and Wong in spectacularly different gowns, laughing at men and smoking cigarettes. Wong commands attention. She's not less than Dietrich. And if the times had given her a real solid chance...

 

I love her slow movements in this film. Keep your eyes peeled on Wong when she re-enters the compartment while Dietrich turns on the gramophone. Is it my imagination or do you see the quiet admiration; look at her indifference to Old Lady Haggerty in their compartment. Why, Anna May doesn't even bother looking at the woman's business card, just tossing it on the table while continuing to play Solitaire. And when she does speak, she slams the old gal:

 

"I don't...quite...know the standard of respectability that you demand in your boarding house Mrs. Haggerty."

 

It's the first time she speaks in the film and what a wallop. I imagine for 1932 audiences it might be the clarity and perfect diction from this Asian woman that was surprising. For me, it's her mellifluous voice that washes over me. Her economy of gesture draws me in. Later in the movie she doesn't escape Oland's advances as Dietrich does, poor dear; she has no protector against the "fate-worse-than-death" that befalls her. Still, a little later in the film, she gets a lost in the shuffle when the big commotion ensues. But not to worry. You know what they say about payback.

 

Hmmm...I wonder how "THE LETTER" would fare with Anna May Wong staring down Bette Davis.

 

But at the core of "Shanghai Express" it is a love story between Dietrich's and Clive Brook's characters and how they inch back toward each other. For the life of me, I can't see what she sees in Clive Brook. I suppose he represents Upper Class Respectability and he does love her...yet he seems like such a stick-in-the-mud to me.

 

BROOK: It was difficult to find someone to take your place.

 

DIETRICH: Did you try very hard?

 

BROOK: Not particularly. I didn't want to be hurt again.

 

DIETRICH: Always a bit selfish Doc, thinking of your own hurt.

 

BROOK: I can't accept your reproach. I was the only one hurt.

 

DIETRICH: You left me without a word purely because I indulged in a woman's trick to make you jealous. I wanted to be certain that you loved me and instead I lost you. I suffered quite a bit and I probably deserved it.

 

Typical in movies of the day to make love's sacrifices without the other party knowing the real reasons. But if you truly forgive without knowing why...if you truly forgive based on your faith in that person, I guess you've got something there.

 

I marvelled at the movie's ending. The music playing underneath salutations to each character whom we've spent time with on the train. The pathos of the military man. Mrs. Haggerty still as stuck up as she wanted to be, not changing a whit. The tracking shot of von Sternberg's as we follow Dietrich's walk against the crowd, all men turning their heads to take a look at her. (Gee whiz...I can only dream of garnering such attention). Dietrich and Brook finally come together in the crowded station. I liked how she tells him that there is no one there but them (isn't that the way love is for lovers?)

 

I absolutely loved the way Brook puts her arms around his neck for the final clinch.

 

< (Sigh! ) > What a movie!

[JackFavell]

Oh, Sister! FANTASTIC write-up!

 

I am so with you on *Shanghai Express.* This is my favorite Von Sternberg now.

 

It was WONDERFUL. One of the best looking movies I've ever seen, but without the kitsch of *The Scarlet Empress*. I find that I love Von Sternberg, even if he was a task-master and way too profligate.

 

I really enjoyed what you said about the train being a character - I felt that too - I thought that no one but David Lean could make a train appear that stunning , but I was wrong:

 

 

Marlene was awe-inspiringly beautiful, she was the whole movie really - you simply can't take your eyes off of her. She moves, her eyes flicker around, everything she does catches your eye. How Clive Brook could remain such a stick in the mud with her hands all over him, I'll never know. There is a shot where Marlene turns him in her arms and stands behind him, all the while her hands are pressing his chest... I would post it but I can't find it. I don't know how an actor could remain cool when she was touching him like that.

 

It would have been nice if an actor with a bit more expressiveness played "Doc", though I do see the point in using him - she looked even MORE fantastically sexy because Clive was so stodgy. I wanted her to take him in the worst way and degrade him.

 

It was great to see Anna May Wong with a meaty role, she was flawless, her scene during and after Oland has got a hold of her was spectacular. Your words are so beautiful about her, I can't write anything more. I really enjoyed how modern the two women's relationship was - it stands out even now, eighty years later, just like the one in *Baby Face* does. Would we be further along in our development as human beings if the production code had never been instituted? It feels like it to me sometimes.

 

I also thought Warner Oland quite good, bringing a little realistic bureaucratic sympathy to the villain role. I loved the way the film was written - showing the uppity westerners to be no better than their "captors"... It made me laugh every time one of them complained about the swinish behavior of the Chinese, when they were behaving even worse.

 

Was Louise Closser Hale's little dog a Lhasa Apso?

 

 

 

I thought it quite appropriate that she was cosseting a little Chinese or Tibetan dog, while berating the Chinese people she encountered.

 

Here are some of the shots from the movie that really caught my attention. I loved the use of shutters and shades in the film.

 

Our first real glimpse of Shanghai Lily. Before this shot, we see her within a car window, partially blocked by her hat and veil, and turning just a bit away from the camera. Here, she enters the compartment which the fusty minister has just left because he doesn't want to be near "the bad woman" Anna May Wong. Shanghai Lily has no such pretentions. She pulls the shade down just as we see her face clearly. Von Sternberg keeps her mysterious.

 

 

Marlene seems to have been incredibly inspiring to Von Sternberg. There is not a shot of her in the film that isn't a piece of art in itself. She's like porcelain:

 

 

 

 

Using Anna May Wong and Marlene to offset one another was brilliant. Their contempt for the respectable passengers echoes one another, though Wong's seems more racially based, and Marlene's is more humorous. Plus, Von Sternberg again uses them as works of art, setting each other off perfectly:

 

 

 

Here is my favorite shot in the film, it's jawdropping - the conductor passing through the train at night, row upon row of compartments in front of him...

 

 

I also LOVE the way Von Sternberg uses extremely slow fades:

 

 

 

SHANGHAI LILY - SPOILED

 

You make a great comparison to *Grand Hotel*... but the thing I like most is how *Shanghai Express* gives us a huge twist - the most prejudiced man on the train, Rev. Mr. Carmichael (very well played by Lawrence Grant), does an about face by the end of the picture. He really refutes his false notions, at least about Lily. The man we thought was going to be kindly and sympathetic, Mr. Salt, (Eugene Palette), turns out to be easily swayed by the cheap but snooty Mrs. Haggerty, the most prejudiced of the lot.

 

I love it when Mrs. Haggerty comes into the girls compartment, where they are playing their phonograph too loud. She introduces herself, handing out that infamous card that AMW throws casually on the table, and says, "I hope you girls will come and stay with me at my boarding house..." and one of them says, "What kind of a house did you say it was?" I laughed my head off at that.

 

I have always liked Marlene. But after her day, I find that I love her, I love her freedom, her strength, her smarts, her bravery, her sensibility, and her sensuality. I love her for what she did in WWII, taking a stand that led to her ostracism from her homeland, because it was RIGHT. She is a model for me of what a woman should be, an open, charitable human being, and if I were as beautiful and defiant of society's mores as she was, I might have lived my life in a similar way.

 

But most of all I just love to watch her - preferably in stunning black and white.

 

 

 

[CineMaven]

"...If he's a Cigar Store Indian, then he makes a perfect perch for Dietrich's plumy Bird of Paradise."

 

Miss G., as usual I enjoyed your comments, but THAT was as deliciously clever a cinematic metaphor as you've ever written!!!

 

JACK FAVELL writes: It would have been nice if an actor with a bit more expressiveness played "Doc", though I do see the point in using him - she looked even MORE fantastically sexy because Clive was so stodgy. I wanted her to take him in the worst way and degrade him. :-)

 

Ha! Jackie, That got a great big laugh out of me. Degradation...a masochist's aphrodisiac.

 

This piece of dialogue I believe is the crux of their relationship:

 

BROOK: From one of your lovers?

 

DIETRICH: No.

 

BROOK: I wish I could believe you.

 

DIETRICH: Don?t you?

 

BROOK: No.

 

DIETRICH: Will you never learn to believe without proof??

 

BROOK (with resignation): I believe you Madeleine.

 

She shows him the letter...from a lover.

 

DIETRICH: When I needed your faith you withheld it. And now when I don?t need it and don?t deserve it you give it to me.

 

This is a lesson (or a test) he'll finally learn. I like how von Sternberg mirrors that at the end of the movie between what the Minister knows, and Clive Brook believes.

 

...I really enjoyed how modern the two women's relationship was - it stands out even now, eighty years later, just like the one in "Baby Face" does. Would we be further along in our development as human beings if the production code had never been instituted? It feels like it to me sometimes.

 

You've said something I?ve thought about off and on for many years now Jack, about our social and racial mores; how far along would we be, living together peacefully, if folks started back then and before, to truly understand each other instead of pigeon-holing each other. How far along would movies be if "Buck Rogers" had the special FX of a "Star Wars." What would "Avatar" look like now?

 

Using Anna May Wong and Marlene to offset one another was brilliant. Their contempt for the respectable passengers echoes one another, though Wong's seems more racially based, and Marlene's is more humorous. Plus, Von Sternberg again uses them as works of art, setting each other off perfectly...

 

I like I like. And your screen-capped examples are excellent. von Sternberg created tableaux.

 

...The man we thought was going to be kindly and sympathetic, Mr. Salt, (Eugene Palette), turns out to be easily swayed by the cheap but snooty Mrs. Haggerty, the most prejudiced of the lot.

 

For some reason known only to the movie gods...Eugene Pallette made me think of Spanky grown up to be a man with a froggy voice. ( I dunno where that came from guys ). (???)

 

But most of all I just love to watch her - preferably in stunning black and white.

 

I have to agree with you JackaaaAaaay. And like Miss G. mentioned, that shot of Dietrich in the corridor is iconic. Notice her hands were trembling in that shot, too. (Shanghai Lily's motive and sacrifice, was similar to Camille's: "Make my love hate me!")

 

Yes Jack, Dietrich looked divine!! And your praise and admiration for her is so beautifully expressed as to be quite palpable.

[JackFavell]

> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}So glad you two have discovered one of my long time favorites, *Shanghai Express*. I've loved this movie forever. Along with *Morocco*, it's my favorite Von Sternberg. SE is an exciting, potently exotic concoction of the golden age of sound stage filmmaking...the kind of hyper romantic movie world that cannot ever be repeated. And Dietrich makes a wonderful instrument for Von Sternberg's imagination and creativity. She's ever bit his creation as the sets and mood. I don't think any other actress could have been as perfect for him, few would have put themselves so totally in his hands, being so willing a Trilby for his Svengali. I like la Dietrich for many reasons, and her loyalty to VSB and always giving him the credit for her career is one of them. She's like Duke was to Pappy, a loyal soldier.

 

Marlene would be proud to be thought of as a "loyal soldier". She allowed herself to be molded, even though she had a strong will of her own. I think she knew a good thing when she saw it and was grateful to VSB for giving her her very different persona.

 

When someone invests so much of their heart and soul into a movie - plus time, money, brains and effort, you have to be impressed. Von Sternberg was a filmmaker, above everything, and it's a shame we can't see this kind of movie ever coming to the fore again. The lushness, the romanticism are gone forever, like the old south in Gone with the Wind. Nowadays when they try for the romantic in films, we are inextricably linked with reality and naturalism. It's not an easy combination, though Hollywood seems to want to take the easy way out. Von Sternberg would never have taken the easy way.... perhaps with disastrous consequences for his career.

 

 

 

 

> Anyway, I love the movie's visual splendor, exoticism and sensuality, and it's remarkable that anyone as wooden as Clive Brook can be the love object and yet not spoil matters. Somehow, watching the movie repeatedly has softened my resistence to him and now I can view him with amusement, laughing at his stiffness that seems too earnest not to be deliberate and tongue-in-cheek. I think he's hilarious. If he's a Cigar Store Indian, then he makes a perfect perch for Dietrich's plumy Bird of Paradise.

 

I think you are right.... he is perfect in his uprightness, and completely offsets Marlene. I was wracking my brains for who might have played him better, and I could NOT think of a single actor, except maybe for Ronald Colman, and I think he might not have taken the role. The more she teases, the more upright he becomes.... if he were to waver, it would not be so much fun. It's about Doc's fall from the mountaintop, and the further he has to fall, the better we like it. So the more I think about the movie, the more I think Brook is the perfect choice.

 

You are dead on about Brook, he is hilarious in his misconceptions, so very male, and so very deluded, while foundering around trying to hold her off. He might as well try to hold off the steam from the train whistle. Marlene is insidious, she will get inside you and never let you rest. It would have been easier for him to give in right away, but then he wouldn't have been worth the effort.

 

> Marvelous screencaps, Jackie. The shot of la Dietrich with the overhead light, smoking alone in the train corridor, is one of my all time favorites in film.

 

My sister used to have a lot of movie books, and I remember this shot and many other iconic Dietrich shots. There is a book I have, *Four Fabulous Faces* (the other three being Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, and Greta Garbo) with some of the most stunning photos of stars I've ever seen. Then it shows how these particular stars influenced fashion, makeup, and style, and it also shows other stars adopting their looks. It's worth getting a peek at.

 

> P.S. Good observation about the train being a character, CinemAva. I love the way the sound of its rhythm seems to pulsate with the erotic energy being teased to the surface between Dietrich and Brook.

 

I love the way you said this. it is a big tease, this movie.

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 4, 2011 10:25 AM

[JackFavell]

I think you cut to the heart of the movie with those lines. I loved the way the minister changed his mind about her, and then phrased it at the end - something about "love without faith"....

 

Only Dietrich and Garbo could make self sacrifice so impressive - they both are so strong, it makes what they are doing even more selfless...

 

Edited by: JackFavell on Sep 4, 2011 10:30 AM

[CineMaven]

> Only Dietrich and Garbo could make self sacrifice so impressive - they both are so strong, it makes what they are doing even more selfless...

 

Aaaaaaah...the two Grande Dames of Early Talking Cinema. They had faces then...and Big Emotions!

 

> You are dead on about Brook, he is hilarious in his misconceptions, so very male, and so very deluded, while foundering around trying to hold her off. He might as well try to hold off the steam from the train whistle. Marlene is insidious, she will get inside you and never let you rest. It would have been easier for him to give in right away, but then he wouldn't have been worth the effort.

 

Now you both have gone and pointed out the other end of the movie for me, Brook's end; his resistance against her love. That's as much of the movie too, though Dietrich is so blinding. I can see von Sternberg yelling through his megaphone now: "You vill be stone, Clive. You are stone!!!"

 

"SHANGHAI EXPRESS: Or What Happens When An Immovable Object Meets An Unstoppable Force???"

[JackFavell]

> Now you both have gone and pointed out the other end of the movie for me, Brook's end; his resistance against her love. That's as much of the movie too, though Dietrich is so blinding. I can see von Sternberg yelling through his megaphone now: "You vill be stone, Clive. You are stone!!!"

>

> *"SHANGHAI EXPRESS: Or _What Happens When An Immovable Object Meets An Unstoppable Force???"*_

 

Ha ha! isn't that the truth!

[Bronxgirl48]

Love your SHANGHAI EXPRESS write-up. I'm slowly becoming a real Dietrich fan and feel her best early work is THE BLUE ANGEL, MOROCCO, and SHANGHAI EXPRESS. (Did anyone see THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN? Wasn't able to catch it all. I never thought I'd say 'poor" Lionel Atwill...) Love her as the ultimate survivor in A FOREIGN AFFAIR (underrated Wilder imo). To Jean Arthur: "That's a stunning dress ,my dear, but don't you have it on backwards?"

 

On a less sublime note, let me just quickly interject: Did anybody see KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT?

 

I did.

 

Trying to forget.

 

Polly: "What's that you're reading, dear?"

Neglected hubby Fred: "Nothing you'd be interested in. It's Theodore White's 'The Making of the President'.

 

 

[MissGoddess]

I only saw about five minutes of it and found it unfunny so I watched something else.

 

I wanted to see *The Miracle* but had to go out after about the first half hour. It looked interesting, I never saw Carroll Baker with dark hair and she was still quite young. It looked like it might have been filmed on location in Mexico or somewhere.

[Bronxgirl48]

Marlene has such charisma I think some people forget she was a fine actress. She's the best thing for me in STAGE FRIGHT. I need and want to see all of her work.

 

You shouldn't know from KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT. Poor Fred, I'm telling you, I was also thinking of his better days. The script gives him the name of "Thaddeus McCloud". How quaint. He's got a wife who is Executive in Chief, a mouthy young son and a frustrated teenage daughter. I didn't remember if they had a sheepdog. The horror, the horror....SALT & PEPPER looked like a European art film by comparison.

 

Edited by: Bronxgirl48 on Sep 5, 2011 12:12 AM

[CineMaven]

:^0 OMG! Again. It happened again. No I haven't been smoking or drinking anything funny. The "Salt & Pepper" comment... :^0

 

One of us needs a psychiatrist. Yeah, that'd be me. You are hilarious!