Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Shanghai Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Not so grand hotel.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 20, 2015

What is it about Chinese Revolutions and a bunch of international expats holed up in a hotel, or at least something like it? Samuel Bronston’s 1963 epic 55 Days at Peking posited a bunch of folks, including a few disillusioned Americans, trying to weather the storms of the Boxer Revolution in a red velvet draped “compound” where various soap operatic stories played out against the background of an incipient uprising of the natives. Nine years before Bronston’s film, a decidedly less luxe production from the typically meager efforts of Republic Studios offered another group of international misfits reeling from strictures placed upon foreigners in the wake of the Communist Revolution in China which promoted Mao Tse-Tung to power. 1954 was not an especially “popular” year for Communists, at least in the United States, where the public was reeling from news items like the Soviets’ mastery of hydrogen bomb technology and (supposedly) their nefarious incursion into the top echelons of the American government, as alleged by one Senator Joseph McCarthy. Some of that Cold War Era paranoia is amply on display in The Shanghai Story, a fairly turgid potboiler that offers a world weary doctor named Maynard (Edmond O’Brien) and a mysterious woman with an exotic past named Rita King (Ruth Roman), among a gaggle of other types, who have been renditioned to an empty hotel in Shanghai under new roles imposed by the Communist government. Some sneaky spy has been getting information about those nasty Commies out to the world at large, and the powers that be are not at all pleased about it, having rounded up both the usual and unusual suspects in an attempt to ferret out exactly who is involved in international espionage. It’s notable that The Shanghai Story doesn’t really dwell on the mystery of it all (the spy is rather calmly revealed relatively early on), instead focusing on the supposed “human drama” of the individuals having one of those lodging stays which will probably not get many stars on their Trip Advisor reports.

The hyperbolic nature of the U.S. — Communist “relationship” of the early to mid-fifties, one that was of course swathed in a certain amount of propaganda and misperception on both sides of the aisle, is frequently on display throughout The Shanghai Story to sometimes rather lurid effect. Early in the film, as the group of international expats is rounded up and dragged to the perhaps once luxurious New Waldorf House Hotel, a little girl lets go of her dog, a canine which promptly runs over and bites the ankle of a nasty looking Chinese Communist officer. Of course the nefarious Commie simply pulls out his pistol and kills the little pup, to the understandable horror of the little girl. “Forget the H Bomb menace,” this film seems to be saying, “Communists kill dogs!”

Later in the film, something a bit more disturbing for adults is on display when a harried young couple named Emilio (Paul Picerni) and Leah De Verno (Yvette Duguay) run afoul of harridan Chinese Communist Major Ling Wu (Philip Ahn), with the husband ending up jailed and tortured (just one of several characters put under the lash, as it were) and the attractive wife finding herself a sexual pawn to Wu, who taunts the poor woman with threats about her husband’s future if she doesn’t relent to Wu’s amorous advances. In other words, subtlety is not exactly The Shanghai Story’s strong suit, something that plays rather uneasily against the screenplay’s efforts to inject a certain realistic world weariness into the proceedings, largely through the rumpled character of Doctor Maynard.

The Shanghai Story in fact doesn’t really seem to know whether or not it wants to be a soap opera or a spy thriller, and so tends to divert attention to any number of the coterie of folks held at the New Waldorf House, while simultaneously giving lip service to the supposed reason they’re all there in the first place—there’s a spy that needs punishing. With that mystery dispensed with in a somewhat mystifyingly straightforward fashion, there’s little else for the film to do than to wallow in the various discomforts of these stranded and desperate people. Rita’s supposedly “shaded” past makes her the object of some suspicion, as her loyalties are supposedly unclear (though any viewer of average intelligence will not be exactly surprised that she turns out to be a basically good egg). The film tries to work up some romantic sparks between Maynard and Rita, but they’re fairly restrained and even soggy, given the overall dankness of the film’s approach.

The film does provide a glut of great character actors a chance to strut their stuff. A young Richard Jaeckel is on hand as a kind of street tough named Knuckles Greer, a kid who seems to have an inexhaustible supply of hooch with which he plies Maynard at various points. Whit Bissell and Frank Ferguson are also among the poor “residents” of the New Waldorf House who find that their hosts aren’t above beating the supposed truth out of them. And Marvin Miller makes for an appealingly smarmy villain as Shanghai’s new police chief Colonel Zorek, a guy who just possibly has a bit of a past with one Rita King.

Perhaps incredibly, this film was directed by the once iconic Frank Lloyd, one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a director who helmed a number of early classics, including two for which he won Academy Awards himself, The Divine Lady and Cavalcade (Lloyd also directed the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty). The Shanghai Story finds Lloyd much later in his career struggling to shape a story that is tawdry and predictable, while also being structurally unsure of itself. Performances are generally very good and the film at least moves at a reasonable pace, but the often exaggerated melodrama on display undercuts the film’s ambitions to be a gritty exposé of the perceived evils of those dastardly Chinese Communists.

The Shanghai Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Shanghai Story is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. As evidenced by a rather heavy layer of grain and an overall soft look, this may have been sourced at least partially from duplicate elements. At times, even midrange shots can appear slightly fuzzy, with objects (including people) not having completely clear delineation (look at screenshot 6 toward the tip of the little girl's nose). At other times, though, both contrast and clarity take incremental but noticeable upticks, though the bulk of this presentation looks fairly mottled due to the very heavy grain field. Elements are in generally okay condition, though there is a fair amount of the typical kinds of age related wear and tear we regularly report about in these older catalog titles, including above average amounts of scratches and (especially) minus density. Some of the film's darkest sequences have slightly inadequate contrast, something that exacerbates the clarity issues which the heavy grain field presents. As is the case with Olive releases, there are no signs of excessive digital intrusion, and so while this shows no signs of any restorative efforts, there's a generally decently organic appearance here.

The Shanghai Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Shanghai Story features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix which is slightly shallow sounding, but which offers capable support for the film's dialogue and somewhat overheated score by R. Dale Butts. While the track is a bit flat sounding, there's no real damage to cause any concern or worry. Fidelity is very good, but dynamic range is rather curtailed.

The Shanghai Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.

The Shanghai Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Grand Hotel featured the classic line, "Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens." Well, that's mostly true of The Shanghai Story as well, except for the fact that these poor people don't go much of anywhere once they're rounded up by the Chinese Communists. Too melodramatic to support the already tenuous exposition of the spy angle, and never energetic enough to support the overly maudlin personal stories of several of the folks ensconced at the New Waldorf House, The Shanghai Story ends up being held hostage to its own unclear ambitions. Performances are generally quite winning, however, though those considering a purchase should take a while to peruse the screenshots accompanying this review.