I watched the 1931 movie “Shanghai Express”, starting Warner Oland, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and others.
The passenger cars and locomotive looked very North American. Can anyone tell me where this film was shot and is the railroad equipment US?
Ed Burns
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis.
I’m going to hazard a guess here, but I’m sure it’s a good one.
Hollywood usually didn’t go too far afield when they needed some railroad action, so chances are you may have been looking at Southern Pacific or Santa Fe equipment.
If it was filmed on a hollywood backlot, then you can bet it was American equipment. Take some basic heavyweight cars, paint 'em up as you need 'em, and there you go.
Lady Firestorm wants to know: Did you stay up late to watch “Knight Without Armor” on TCM’s Marlene Dietrich Day? She had they had a really good looking train in that one! I’ve seen it myself, the Brits who made the film did a really good job disguising a British locomotive to look Russian.
Ed, you seem to be a fan of old movies. The place to get the kind of info you are looking for is the Internet Movie Database at www.imdb.com
It shows Shanghai Express as being a 1932 release. It lists the locations for filming as the Santa Fe depot in San Bernardino, CA, Chatsworth, CA, and Paramont Studios in Hollywood.
Imdb is a great place for old movie fans.
Bruce
Yes, I really like old movies. The black and white ones are the best. Of course, the BEST railroad movie of all time was “Danger Lights”! The “Hurricane Express” used SP locomotives and PE right of way. It looks like models were also used.
One question—how does one go from Boston to New York on the SP? That short spot was on a TV show. If I remember correctly, EG Marshall was the star of the show.
Ed Burns
The locomotive used in the 1931 “Shanghai Express” was a Southern Pacific 4300 class 4-8-2. It was not fitted with a skyline casing (which I think post-dated 1931 anyway…)
The locomotive ran through a set representing Chinese style buildings built up to the side of the track in the opening scene.
Almost certainly this was filmed in Hollywood (or at least the LA area).
M636C
Danger Lights is noted for another reason besides having great location footage on The Milwaukee Road. Around 1930 the film industry was experimenting with various widescreen format technologies. Fox released several films in its Grandeur process, Warner Brothers had Vitascope, United Artists had Magnifilm, MGM had Realife and RKO, the studio that released Danger Lights, had Natural Vision. Danger Lights was the only RKO feature film that was released in Natural Vision and this version played briefly in two theaters, one in Chicago and one in New York. The rest of the country saw Danger Lights in a standard 35mm release. Unfortunately, the widescreen version of Danger Lights has long since disappeared.
This link contains a frame from the widescreen version of Danger Lights:
http://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18182
This link contains an ad for the widescreen version of Danger Lights:
http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/2001/64/grandeur/
Ultimately, only 11 widescreen films were released in 1929-30 and, due to the incompatibility of the various widescreen formats, plus disinterest by exhibitors and public (who
Lady Firestorm and I just LOVE “Danger Lights,” especially that great dialog…
“I only work when I wanna, and I don’t wanna now!”
“Oh yeah?” “YEAH!”
And how about:
“People gotta marry the thing they love best, you, each other. Me? Da railroad!”
Can’t beat some of those old films for sheer fun!
A bit O.T. from Shanhai Express…
My dad was born and raised in Miles City. I remember him telling me about a movie being made where there was a pushing contest between two locomotives and have a vague impression he may have been part of the crowd watching. I downloaded the movie from the Internet Rchive site, started watching it an immediately recognized the tall smokestack at the Milwaukee shops in Miles City.
Also got a kick out of the story about the “third cook” on the NP - author getting his first drink from a bar across from NP’s Miles City station. Might have been the same bar that my uncle hung out with his friends before getting drafted for WW2.
With regard to Shanghai Express, it should be noted that it’s no coincidence that the interior of the coaches look American. US capital financed most of the railroads in China between the wars and the Chinese adopted US standards and practices and bought mostly American equipment. Watching this movie I really enjoyed Marlene Dietrich vamping it up in the role of “Shanghai Lilly”. What a name for a shady lady. I caught a showing of Danger Lights on Turner Classic Movies. It was one of the original sound features. The version I saw had been remastered and the sound was really tremendous, almost the best thing about the film. The train sequences were very authentic and the steam action was great. I’m still wondering how they managed to run so fast through all the switches during the final scenes in Chicago!