Shanghai * (1935, Loretta Young, Charles Boyer, Warner Oland) – Classic Movie Review 8690

‘Love Hurls a Challenge… At a Law As Old as Civilization Itself!’

Director James Flood’s turgid 1935 romantic melodrama Shanghai stars Loretta Young as an American woman called Barbara Howard, who stands by a Shanghai financier named Dimitri Koslov (Charles Boyer), disgraced by revelations about his mixed-race lineage from Russia and China.

The wasted attractive leads (reunited from 1934’s Caravan) try incredibly hard but they are miscast and this is dully tedious, desperately dated romantic stuff that doesn’t deserve much of a welcome nowadays. It also stars Warner Oland (aka Charlie Chan) as Ambassador Lun Sing and Alison Skipworth as Aunt Jane.

Also in the cast are Fred Keating, Charles Grapewin, Libby Taylor, Walter Fitzgerald, Walter Kingsford, Olive Tell, Keye Luke, Willie Fung, Josephine Whittell, Boothe Howard, Arnolf Korff, Philip Ahn, Louise Brien, Lester Dorr, Bess Flowers and Cyril Ring.

Shanghai is directed by James Flood, runs 76 minutes, is made by Walter Wanger Productions and Paramount Pictures, is released by Paramount, is written by Gene Towne, C Graham Baker and Lynn Starling, shot in black and white by James van Trees, produced by Walter Wanger, scored by Frederick Hollander and designed by Alexander Tobuloff.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8690

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