An old film I love very much is “Shanghai Express”, from 1932, directed by Josef von Sternberg and featuring Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong in very interesting roles.
This is probably the most famous collaboration between von Sternberg and Dietrich and lot has been written about it, essays, reviews, in-depth analysis of what makes it so special. I have listed some of them at the end of this article. I want instead provide some context to the drawing I made from a scene in the film, and also focus on a few points about the film and the actors that I found particularly interesting.
Why I love this film
I love this film because I love old black and white movies in general, and this one is so beautifully shot: The lighting, the framing, the attention to detail. But in particular the lighting, it is extraordinary. Also, it features a train, and I love trains. And it has both Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong, and they are both strong characters.
I also love the way the characters speak. When asked why all the actors in the film spoke in an even monotone, Josef von Sternberg answered
This is the Shanghai Express. Everybody must talk like a train. [1]
In fact, it is not simply a monotone. The cadence of the characters’ speech reflects the rhythm of the train. I like the content of the dialogue as well. I love in particular this exchange between Magdalen, who calls herself Shanghai Lily, and her former lover, Captain Donald Harvey, a surgeon. You have to see it because the delivery makes it a lot better. It starts at about 10 minutes in.
Magdalen.
Well, Doctor, I haven’t seen you in a long time. You haven’t changed at all, Doctor.
Well, you’ve changed a lot, Magdalen.
Have I, Doc? Do you mind me calling you Doc? Or must I be… more respectful?
You never were respectful and you always did call me Doc. I didn’t think I’d ever run into you again.
Have you thought of me much, Doc?
Let’s see. Exactly how long has it been?
Five years and four weeks.
Well, for five years and four weeks I’ve thought of nothing else.
You were always polite, Doc. You haven’t changed a bit.
You have, Magdalen. You’ve changed a lot.
Have I lost my looks?
No, you’re more beautiful than ever.
How have I changed?
I wish I could describe it.
Well, Doc, I’ve changed my name.
Married?
No. It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.
So you’re Shanghai Lily.
The notorious white flower of China. You heard of me. And you always believed what you heard.
And I still do. You see, I haven’t changed at all. It was nice to see you again, Magdalen.
Oh, I don’t know. [2]
I also love has what been called the moral ambiguity, which means it is not simply the good are good and the bad are bad. Finally, this movie was filmed in 1931 and released in 1932, so it is nearly a hundred years old, which is quite amazing.
The actresses
Marlene Dietrich (born Marie Magdalene Dietrich in 1901 in Berlin) is rightly famous for many reasons, she was a truly remarkable woman. If you don’t know her, this article “Marlene Dietrich: anti-fascist and a role model for women’s emancipation” gives a good idea. The article refers to her donating her entire income from “Knight Without Armour” to helping the refugees from Nazi Germany. By 1937, Marlene was the highest-paid star in Hollywood, earning the unprecedented sum of $450,000 to star in that movie. In today’s money that would be close to ten million dollars.
According to an article about Dietrich on Music and the Holocaust:
Whilst travelling to London in 1933 Dietrich was approached by Nazi Party members who tried to persuade her to return to Germany and become the ‘pretty face’ of the Third Reich. When she refused, her films were banned. It is alleged that Hitler proposed Dietrich become his mistress; when she refused he had all copies of Der Blaue Engel destroyed except for one, which he kept for himself.
I also like her as an actress. Besides “Shanghai Express”, I like many of her films, in particular Golden Earrings, Witness for the Prosecution, The Foreign Affair and Stage Fright, and her small role in Orson Welles’s “Touch of Evil”.
“I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men. If I dressed for myself I wouldn’t bother at all. Clothes bore me. I’d wear jeans. I adore jeans. I get them in a public store—men’s, of course; I can’t wear women’s trousers. But I dress for the profession.” (Marlene Dietrich, in an interview in 1960) [3]
Anna May Wong (born Wong Liu Tsong 黃 柳 霜 in 1905 in Los Angeles) is probably less well known, mostly because of the inherent racism in the film industry which stopped her from getting top roles. You should definitely read this article by Katie Gee Salisbury who wrote her biography . It’s a real eye-opener of how openly racist the US was at that time. Here is a snippet:
Wong, they explained, could not play O-lan because Wang Lung, the lead male role, had already gone to Paul Muni and allowing two actors of different races to play husband and wife would violate the Hays Code’s ban on miscegenation, even though they would be playing two Chinese characters.
The Hays Code, officially the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPA) Production Code, put a lot of restrictions on what could be shown on screen. One of those was regarding miscegenation (interracial relationships).
The article also mentions the Chinese Exclusion Act. This was a United States federal law from 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese labourers for 10 years. The act was was renewed and strengthened in 1892 with the Geary Act and made permanent in 1902. Every Chinese American was ordered to gain a certificate of residence from the US government or face deportation. It remained in force until 1943 when it was repealed because China had become an ally of the US against Japan in WW II, and the US wanted to project a positive image.
So Anna May Wong didn’t get top roles and didn’t get the best scripts either. A notable exception is “Impact” (1949), in which she has a small but crucial role. Another movie where she has the lead role is “Bombs over Burma” (1942), a B-movie of barely more than an hour, made as wartime propaganda for China as ally in the fight against Japan. The movie was shot in two weeks and is extremely low budget but nevertheless worth watching, an not only for Anna May Wong’s performance.
The drawing
For this drawing I used my “staple” Chinese ink stick. I wrote an article about its history, making, and poetry, please read it. Compared to the newer ink I used for my drawing of a scene from “Spring in a small town”, these ink sticks feel smoother when rubbing on the inkstone, and it is also easier to make a very dense black with them, but the actual difference this makes to the drawing is very minor. There is also a slight difference in the tint of black, which is more noticeable.
Trial drawings: portraits of Anna May Wong and Marlene Dietrich
I made several trial drawings for this one. I started with an A4 portrait of Anna May Wong from a different photograph, also from “Shanghai Express”. I did not measure this but drew it quickly in freehand. As a result, the likeness is a little off because the face is a bit too long, but it served as an exercise of control over the ink and brush, and to experiment with the style I wanted.
Next, I did the actual portrait that is part of the large drawing, but also on A4. This is using a grid as I wanted to ensure that the proportions were correct.
Finally, I drew the portrait of Marlene Dietrich that is also part of the large drawing, again on A4 using a grid. Instead of ink, I worked it out using graphite aquarelle pencils. Compared to the Chinese ink, the dark tones are a lot less intense, but for this portrait I think it worked very well.
The large drawing: Hui Fei and Shanghai Lily
I wanted a double portrait of Anna May Wong playing Hui Fei and Marlene Dietrich playing Shanghai Lily. There is a publicity picture that has both of them looking out of the internal windows of their compartment. (I used a crop of it as banner for the article.) In the movie, Lily is looking into the corridor but the window next to her has the blind drawn. Then she moves away to the look out of the outside window. Hui Fei opens the blind, looks out briefly and also moves to the outside window. Then are a few brief shots of the other passengers, and Lily moves back to look out of the internal window. They are not shown together, but it is quite possible that this is a scene that got cut. The position of the film camera is a bit different from that of the photo camera, which is to be expected as the photographer would of course have stood next to the camera.
The scene is interesting for the contrast between the two women, especially in terms of darkness and light. I leave it to others to speculate on the symbolism of Hui Fei wearing light colours and Shanghai Lily wearing dark ones. I think the main reason was for the visual contrast, and because it sets off their hair colour. But it is and interesting detail that Shanghai Lily is wearing men’s pyjamas. They became popular with women because of this and because Claudette Colbert also wore them two years later in “It Happened One Night”.
I used Hui Fei’s pose from the photograph but I wanted Lily’s face to be closer to hers so I used an actual pose from the movie where she bends a bit to her right. I also changed the direction of their glance so they look at the viewer. As usual, it is the expressions on the faces of both characters that interested me. I wanted to show their watchfulness and apprehension.
I used the rough watercolour paper I like (Fabriano Artistico, 300 g/m² cold pressed “not”), 56 cm x 76 cm. I set up the drawing in ordinary HB pencil and Tombow MONO 100 graphite lead pencils (2B, 4B and 5B). I used a grid to make it easier to match the original picture.
I applied the Chinese ink mostly using a medium-size calligraphy brush, and Hui Fei’s hair with a larger brush. This kind of brush doesn’t allow the precision of a typical watercolour brush, even more so as mine are a worn from use, but that is precisely why I use them. Not having full control over the stroke is part of the style. I want the pencil work and brush stroke to be visible and also somewhat rough and imprecise, so that the overall impression works.
The Chinese characters on the bottom left are 車快海上, which means “Shanghai Express”. The are written on the carriages in the film and run from right to left, which was common but is now usual.
The banner is a crop of the photograph on which the drawing is based. It shows the characters in a wider view of the train compartment.
References
[1] Shanghai Express (1932) by Dan Willard
[2] Shanghai Express script
[3] From the Observer archive, 6 March 1960: Marlene Dietrich’s wardrobe secrets
Further reading
- Shape shifters: Racialized and gendered crossings in Piccadilly (1929) and Shanghai Express (1932) by Li Yumin
- Shanghai Express (1932)….When Harry Hervey Got a Look-in…. by Paul French
- Shanghai Express by Wheeler Winston Dixon
- Burned—Anna May Wong and Shanghai Express by Matthew Christensen
- Mayhem in Macao: Josef von Sternberg’s Fantastical Macao of the Mind by Paul French
- Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention, British Film Institute
- Shanghai Express Programme Notes, Edinburgh Film Guild
- Marlene Dietrich on Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil and the Oscars