Shadows Over Shanghai

Just a note the goof is not right about 'Johnny phone' is wrong he picks up middle phone and leaves from the middle phone the mistake is that the Chinese gentleman is using the right phone but standing in middle

"Shadows Over Shanghai" is a very strange film, as its plot and timing is quite odd. It's set during the Japanese invasion of China and takes a somewhat neutral stance on this aggressive and morally bankrupt war.

The film begins with a Irene Roma (Lynda Grey) waiting for her brother to fly home to the school she runs in China. However, at the last minute, another plane flies by and shoots him down--right in front of the horrified Irene! Fortunately, the brother is not dead and he entrusts a necklace to her--making her promise to get it to San Francisco. She runs from the school and drives to town on her mission--pursued by the evil Saragoza (Robert Barrat). She soon meets up with a nice-guy reporter, Johnny (James Dunn) and he and a new friend (Ralph Morgan*) help Irene escape from not just Sargoza but Japanese agents as well.

This is a very strange film. It appears as if the writers WANTED to do a film that condemned the Japanese for their bloody attacks on China. But, they hedged their bets and never quite took a strong stand--mostly because the US was officially neutral and because, sadly, Americans generally didn't care about what was happening in Asia. Regardless, it's entertaining and worth seeing--even if the end is a bit dissatisfying.

*Ralph was never nearly as famous as his brother, Frank (the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz"). I never understood this, as Ralph was a really fine actor and deserves to be remembered. And, interestingly, he really does look an awful lot like Frank, though his acting seemed less bombastic and much more subtle.

Irene, a woman living in China watches as her brother is shot down by an unknown airman. The brother survives but is too weak to continue with his mission which involves taking part of an amulet to San Fransisco to get money for the Chinese war effort against the Japanese. She is warned about the man who shot the brother, a Soviet military man who wants the money for his own. She is also told to look up a certain person in Shanghai if she gets into trouble. Once in Shanghai she runs a fowl of of the villain and escapes thanks to a wounded newspaper photographer, named McGinty, heading home to America. Linking up with her brothers friend the trio tries to get out of the city before the Japanese completely over run it and before the bad guys get them.

Considerably duller than the description makes out (I forgot the villains name and Ralph Morgans as well and I'm not impressed enough to look it up). This is a low budget film that takes into account the then current event of the Japanese Invasion of Shanghai. Despite the use of stock news footage this is a mostly stage bound espionage yarn that substitutes talk for action. Yes its well written, but it lacks any real action until the final reel or two to keep it interesting. The lack of action becomes numbing and I did have to fight to keep awake.

This isn't to say its a bad film, its not,its just a bit too talky for its own good. Lets face it you have to give the film points since the film kept me watching to the end because I had to see how it came out.

Would I recommend it? Well I wouldn't go out of my way to see it but if I found it on I would let it run out its running time. There are worse films and there are better, but in a pinch, on the Late Late Late Movie it would be fine.

In this Grand National cheapie no one got any closer to Shanghai than Los Angeles's Chinatown. James Dunn late of the Fox Studios starred as once again an fast talking Irish American, a kind of Pat O'Brien light working in Shanghai as a news photographer. A chance meeting on the street with Linda Gray the daughter of a missionary gets him involved in all of her troubles which are considerable.

Gray's got troubles all right. She's been entrusted with half an amulet which if presented to the owner of the other half in San Francisco will net her a small fortune that will be used to buy weapons for the Kuomintang government to fight its enemies foreign and domestic. Assisting her is a mutual friend of both Ralph Morgan who suggests that since she was born in China and has no American passport that she and Dunn marry and gain citizenship that way with the automatic exit. It doesn't prove that simple.

For an action hero Dunn doesn't get all that much action, in fact he's reduced to a lot of wisecracks. Morgan does the heavy lifting and he's clever at outwitting Soviet agent Robert Barrat who wants the amulet for nefarious Communist purposes and Japanese top agent Paul Sutton.

Shadow Over Shanghai made with a Gone With The Breeze budget is still reasonably entertaining relying considerably on James Dunn's charming Irish ways.

If you just want to relax and not be challenged by a movie, but not be bored either, this one is for you. Cheaply made and a little slow at times, it nonetheless is quite entertaining. James Dunn and Ralph Morgan are performers who hold your attention. Linda Gray is leaden as an actress, but she is gorgeous in an offbeat way. Robert Barat is good as usual. The plot is entertaining enough, although the mcguffin is not necessarily worth all the to-do.

This was released in 1938. A scene of a city being bombed while our heros try to escape seems lifted from some other movie. It was probably pasted in to give this movie some excitement. However, it also reflected the anxiety people felt in those days about aerial bombardment. As Ralph Morgan says "This is what the next war will look like." And it did.