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62-490: While the traditional style entertainment offered by the Great World today faces great competition from newer forms of entertainment and electronic media, it remains an important tourist attraction popular with visitors to Shanghai from other parts of China. Such is the influence of Great World, that its Chinese name ( Da Shijie ) has become the name of a locality in its vicinity, "Dashijie". Dashijie Station , on Line 8 of

124-603: A Chinese Laundry , was published. Josef von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to an impoverished Orthodox Jewish family in Vienna , at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . When Sternberg was three years old, his father Moses Sternberg, a former soldier in the army of Austria-Hungary, moved to the United States to seek work. Sternberg's mother, Serafine ( née Singer), a circus performer as

186-753: A century. In its heyday, Great World's main attractions were vaudeville, various regional forms of traditional Chinese opera , and Chinese folk art forms. It was also famous for the twelve distorting "magic mirrors" imported from the Netherlands in the lobby area. Writing of his visit in the mid-1930s, Hollywood film director Josef von Sternberg described, "On the first floor were gaming tables, singsong girls, magicians, pick-pockets, slot machines, fireworks, birdcages, fans, stick incense, acrobats, and ginger. One flight up were… actors, crickets and cages, pimps, midwives, barbers, and earwax extractors. The third floor had jugglers, herb medicines, ice cream parlors,

248-660: A child joined Moses in America in 1901 with her five children when Sternberg was seven. On his emigration, von Sternberg is quoted as saying, "On our arrival in the New World we were first detained on Ellis Island where the immigration officers inspected us like a herd of cattle." Jonas attended public school until the family, except Moses, returned to Vienna three years later. Throughout his life, Sternberg carried vivid memories of Vienna and nostalgia for some of his "happiest childhood moments." The elder Sternberg insisted upon

310-412: A director with The Salvation Hunters , an independent picture produced with actor George K. Arthur . The picture, filmed on the minuscule budget of $ 4,800 – "a miracle of organization" – made a tremendous impression on actor-director-producer Charles Chaplin and co-producer Douglas Fairbanks Sr. of United Artists (UA). Influenced by the works of Erich von Stroheim, director of Greed (1924),

372-405: A divorce from her spouse that included charges of mental and physical abuse, in which Sternberg "seems to have acted a husband's role on the model his [abusive] father provided." The pair remarried in 1928, but the relationship continued to deteriorate, ending in a second and final divorce on June 5, 1931. In the summer of 1927, Paramount producer B. P. Schulberg offered, and Sternberg accepted,

434-554: A fascinated public with salacious hints about her private life and adding to the star's glamor and notoriety. The fan press inserted an erotic component into her collaboration with Sternberg, encouraging Trilby-Svengali analogies. The publicity tended to distract critics from the genuine merits of the five movies that would follow and overshadowing the significance of Sternberg's lifetime cinematic output. Morocco serves as Sternberg's exploration of Dietrich's aptitude for conveying onscreen his own obsession with "feminine mystique",

496-540: A major production based on journalist Ben Hecht 's story about Chicago gangsters: Underworld . This film is arguably regarded as the first "gangster" movie, to the extent that it portrayed a criminal protagonist as tragic hero destined by fate to meet a violent death. In Sternberg's hands the "journalistic observations" provided by Hecht's narrative are abandoned and substituted with a fantasy gangsterland that sprang "solely from Sternberg's imagination." Underworld , "clinical and Spartan" in its cinematic technique made

558-439: A mystique that allowed for a sexual interplay blurring the distinction between male and female gender stereotypes. Sternberg demonstrates his fluency in the visual vocabulary of love: Dietrich dresses in drag and kisses a pretty female; Cooper flourishes a ladies' fan and places a rose behind his ear. In terms of romantic complexity, Morocco "is Sternberg's Hollywood movie par excellence ". The box-office success of Morocco

620-480: A new bevy of girls, their high collared gowns slit to reveal their hips, and (as a) novelty, several rows of exposed (Western) toilets. The fourth floor had shooting galleries, fan-tan tables, … massage benches, … dried fish and intestines, and dance platforms. The fifth floor featured girls with dresses slit to the armpits, a stuffed whale, storytellers, balloons, peep shows, masks, a mirror maze, two love letter booths with scribes who guaranteed results, rubber goods, and

682-591: A number of movies for the short-lived Alliance Film Corporation in London, including The Bohemian Girl (1922). When he returned to California in 1924, he began work on his first Hollywood movie as assistant to director Roy William Neill 's Vanity's Price , produced by Film Booking Office (FBO). Sternberg's aptitude for effective directing was recognized in his handling of the operating room scene, singled out for special mention by New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall . The 30-year-old Sternberg made his debut as

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744-439: A position as "technical advisor for lighting and photography." Sternberg was tasked with salvaging director Frank Lloyd 's Children of Divorce , a movie that the studio executives had written off as "worthless". Working "three [consecutive] days of 20-hour shifts" Sternberg reconceived and reshot half the picture and presented Paramount with "a critical and box-office success." Impressed, Paramount arranged for Sternberg to film

806-462: A rigorous study of the Hebrew language, limiting his son to religious studies on top of his regular schoolwork. Biographer Peter Baxter, citing Sternberg's memoirs, reports that "his parents' relationship was far from happy: his father was a domestic tyrant and his mother eventually fled her home in order to escape his abuse." Sternberg's early struggles, including these "childhood traumas" would inform

868-411: A romance set in sordid and brutal environs. Of Sternberg's nine films he completed in the silent era, only four are known to exist today in any archive. That Sternberg's output suffers from "lost film syndrome" makes a comprehensive evaluation of his silent oeuvre impossible. Despite this, Sternberg stands as the great "Romantic artist" of this period in film history. A particularly unfortunate loss

930-410: A significant impression on French filmmakers: Underworld was surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel 's favorite film. With Underworld , Sternberg demonstrated his "commercial potential" to the studios, delivering an enormous box-office hit and Academy Award winner (for Best Original Story). Paramount provided Sternberg with lavish budgets for his next four films. Some historians point to Underworld as

992-570: A subordinate capacity, coincided with the filming and/or release of D. W. Griffith 's Broken Blossoms , Charlie Chaplin 's Sunnyside , Erich von Stroheim 's The Devil's Pass Key , Cecil B. DeMille 's Male and Female , Robert Wiene 's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , Victor Sjöström 's Karin Daughter of Ingmar and Abel Gance 's J'accuse . Sternberg travelled widely in Europe between 1922 and 1924, where he participated in making

1054-447: A tale of a sexually obsessed middle-class youth ( Phillips Holmes ) whose deceptions lead to the death of a poor factory girl ( Sylvia Sidney ). Dreiser was outraged at Sternberg's failure to adhere to his themes in the adaptation and sued Paramount to stop distribution of the movie, but lost his case. Images of water abound in the film and serve as a motif signaling Holmes' motivations and fate. The photography by Lee Garmes invested

1116-457: A temple filled with ferocious gods and joss sticks. On the top floor and roof of that house of multiple joys a jumble of tightrope walkers slithered back and forth, and there were seesaws, Chinese checkers , mahjong , … firecrackers , lottery tickets, and marriage brokers." Now there is theater, music hall, Guinness World Records competition hall, movie hall, video hall, magic world, dancing hall, KTV, tea house and ski field and so on. There

1178-471: A vehicle to commercially exploit the "mystique and glamor" with which they had endowed the Sternberg-Dietrich productions. While Dietrich was visiting her husband, Rudolf Sieber and their daughter Maria Riva in Europe during the winter of 1930–31, Paramount enlisted Sternberg to film an adaption of novelist Theodore Dreiser 's novel An American Tragedy . The production was initially under

1240-476: Is a Woman (1935). The stories are typically set in exotic locales including Saharan Africa , World War I Austria, revolutionary China, Imperial Russia, and fin-de-siècle Spain. Sternberg's "outrageous aestheticism " is on full display in these richly stylized works, both in technique and scenario. The actors in various guises represent figures from Sternberg's "emotional biography", the wellspring for his poetic dreamscapes. Sternberg, largely indifferent to

1302-433: Is a sustained romp through the vicissitudes of spy-versus-spy deception and desire. The feature closes with the melodramatic military execution of Dietrich's Agent X-27 (based on Dutch spy Mata Hari ), the love-struck femme fatale , a scene that balances "gallantry and ghoulishness." Dishonored had not met with the studio's profit expectations at the box-office, and Paramount New York executives were struggling to find

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1364-403: Is also the new Shanghai flavor snack corridor, restaurant and boutique market and so on. The Shanghai Great World is a playing center with entertainment, performance, viewing, food and sports and so on. The Great World consists of three four-storey buildings and two annexe buildings. The building was built in a simple Vernacular Style , except a tall, Baroque -inspired spire in the centre, which

1426-407: Is beyond reproach or ridicule ... The Blue Angel stands up today as Sternberg's most efficient achievement ..." Sternberg's romantic infatuation with his new star created difficulties on and off the set. Jannings strenuously objected to Sternberg's lavish attention to Dietrich's performance, at the elder actor's expense. Indeed, the "tragic irony of The Blue Angel " was "paralleled in real life by

1488-488: Is hard to believe that [Sternberg] had no part in the ennobling." Sternberg would ruefully comment that the elitist "von" drew criticism during the 1930s, when his "lack of realist social themes" would be interpreted as anti-egalitarian. Sternberg served his apprenticeship years with early silent filmmakers, including Hugo Ballin , Wallace Worsley , Lawrence C. Windom and Roy William Neill . In 1919, Sternberg worked with director Emile Chautard 's on The Mystery of

1550-548: Is supported by grand order columns extending to the first floor. Address: 1 Xizang Road, Shanghai 31°13′49″N 121°28′29″E  /  31.2302°N 121.4748°E  / 31.2302; 121.4748 Dashijie Station Dashijie ( Chinese : 大世界 ; pinyin : Dàshìjiè ; lit. 'Great World') is a station on Shanghai Metro Line 8 and Line 14 . It began operation on 29 December 2007 and became an interchange station with Line 14 on 30 December 2021. The shortest distance between two stations on

1612-439: Is that of The Case of Lena Smith , his last silent movie, and described as "Sternberg's most successful attempt at combining a story of meaning and purpose with his very original style." The film fell victim to the emerging talkie enthusiasm and was largely ignored by American critics, but in Europe "its reputation is still high after decades of obscurity." The Austrian Film Museum has assembled archival material to reconstruct

1674-635: The Shanghai Metro is located nearby and is named after Great World. It was closed in 2003 due to an outbreak of the SARS epidemic, and the reopened at its centennial after repairs, in March 2017. The Great World opened on 14 July 1917, the brainchild of Shanghai magnate Huang Chujiu . It was built as an integrated entertainment complex featuring amusement arcades, parlour games , music hall shows, variety shows and traditional Chinese theatre. Great World

1736-612: The "only occasion that Chaplin entrusted another director with one of his own productions." Chaplin had detected a Dickensian quality in Sternberg's representation of his characters and mise-en-scène in The Salvation Hunters and wished to see the young director expand on these elements in the film. The original title, The Sea Gull , was retitled A Woman of the Sea to invoke the earlier A Woman of Paris . Chaplin

1798-413: The "unique subject matter of his films." In 1908, when Jonas was fourteen, he returned with his mother to Queens , New York, and settled in the United States. He acquired American citizenship in 1908. After a year, he stopped attending Jamaica High School and began working in various occupations, including millinery apprentice, door-to-door trinket salesman and stock clerk at a lace factory. At

1860-610: The Americans rejected joining the war until the attack on Pearl Harbor . After the Communist takeover of Shanghai in 1949, Great World was renamed "People's Amusement Arcade", but reverted to the old name in 1958. Closed during the Cultural Revolution , in 1974 the site became the "Shanghai Youth Palace". On 25 January 1981, Great World was re-established, and renamed "Great World Entertainment Centre". Great World

1922-602: The Fifth Avenue lace outlet, he became familiar with the ornate textiles with which he would adorn his female stars and embellish his mise-en-scène . In 1911, when he turned seventeen, the now "Josef" Sternberg, became employed at the World Film Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey. There, he "cleaned, patched and coated motion picture stock" – and served evenings as a movie theatre projectionist. In 1914, when

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1984-496: The M-G-M sets to the consternation of production managers. When Sternberg returned from a sojourn in Europe following his disappointing tenure at M-G-M in 1925, Charles Chaplin approached him to direct a comeback vehicle for his erstwhile leading lady, Edna Purviance . Purviance had appeared in dozens of Chaplin's films, but had not had a serious leading role since the much admired picture A Woman of Paris (1923). This would mark

2046-770: The Shanghai Metro system is that between Dashijie and People's Square. The station in linked to an underground shopping complex containing a McDonald's and other fast food outlets. The station is named after the Great World entertainment complex (in Chinese, " Da Shijie "), traditionally Shanghai's largest amusement arcade. This Shanghai Metro-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Josef von Sternberg Josef von Sternberg ( German: [ˈjoːzɛf fɔn ˈʃtɛʁnbɛʁk] ; born Jonas Sternberg ; May 29, 1894 – December 22, 1969)

2108-596: The Yellow Room , for which he received official screen credit as assistant director. Sternberg honored Chautard in his memoirs, recalling the French director's invaluable lessons on photography, film composition and the importance of establishing "the spatial integrity of his images." This advice led Sternberg to develop his distinctive "framing" of each shot to become "the screen's greatest master of pictorial composition." Sternberg's 1919 debut in filmmaking, though in

2170-514: The augmentation when Sternberg was assistant director and screenwriter for Roy W. Neill's By Devine Right (1923) in hopes that it would "enhance his screen credit" and add "artistic prestige" to the film. Director Erich von Stroheim , also from a poor Viennese family and Sternberg's beau idéal , had attached a faux "von" to his professional name. Although Sternberg emphatically denied any foreknowledge of Dexter's largesse, film historian John Baxter maintains that "knowing his respect for Stroheim it

2232-597: The company was purchased by actor and film producer William A. Brady , Sternberg rose to chief assistant, responsible for "writing [inter]titles and editing films to cover lapses in continuity" for which he received his first official film credits. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, he joined the U.S. Army and was assigned to the Signal Corps headquartered in Washington, D.C., where he photographed training films for recruits. Shortly after

2294-441: The direction of preeminent Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein . His socially deterministic filmic treatment of the novel was rejected by Paramount, and Eisenstein withdrew from the project. Already heavily invested financially in the production, the studio authorized a complete revision of the planned feature. While retaining Dreiser's basic plot and dialogue, Sternberg eliminated its contemporary sociological underpinnings to present

2356-573: The effect of obscuring the motivations of his characters. Released from his contract with United Artists, and regarded as a rising talent in Hollywood, Sternberg was sought after by the major movie studios. Signing an eight-film agreement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925, Sternberg entered into "the increasingly rigid studio system" at M-G-M, where films were subordinated to market considerations and judged on profitability. Sternberg would clash with Metro executives over his approach to filmmaking:

2418-614: The errant bombs were meant for the Japanese warship Izumo that was berthed right next to the International Settlement, using the densely populated area as a human shield , and there is also speculation that the International Settlement was deliberately bombed by orders given to the "errant" pilot as a means to draw the foreign powers to join the war; Europeans did not join the war until the German invasion of Poland and

2480-433: The film, including a 5-minute print fragment discovered in 2005. Paramount moved quickly to adapt Sternberg's next feature, Thunderbolt , for sound release in 1929. An underworld melodrama-musical, its soundtrack employs innovative asynchronous and contrapuntal aural effects, often for comic relief. Thunderbolt garnered leading man George Bancroft a Best Actor Award nomination , but Sternberg's future with Paramount

2542-444: The first of Sternberg's accommodations to the studio profit system, whereas others note that the film marks the emergence of Sternberg's distinctive personal style. The movies Sternberg created for Paramount over the next two years – The Last Command (1928), The Drag Net (1928), The Docks of New York (1929) and The Case of Lena Smith (1929), would mark "the most prolific period" of his career and establish him as one of

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2604-579: The greatest filmmakers of the late silent era. Contrary to Paramount's expectations, none were very profitable in distribution. The Last Command earned high praise among critics and added luster to Paramount's prestige. The film had the added benefit of forging collaborative relations between the director and its Academy Award-winning star Emil Jannings and producer Erich Pommer , both temporarily on loan from Paramount's sister studio, UFA in Germany. Before embarking on his next feature, Sternberg, at

2666-530: The movie was lauded by cineastes for its "unglamorous realism", depicting three young drifters who struggle to survive in a dystopian landscape. Despite its considerable defects, due in part to Sternberg's budgetary constraints, the picture was purchased by United Artists for $ 20,000 and given a brief distribution, but fared poorly at the box-office. On the strength of this picture alone, actor-producer Mary Pickford of UA engaged Sternberg to write and direct her next feature. His screenplay, entitled Backwash ,

2728-536: The picture as a form of art and the director a visual poet. These conflicting priorities would "doom" their association, as Sternberg "had little interest in making a commercial success." Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer first assigned Sternberg to adapt author Alden Brooks ' novel Escape , retitled The Exquisite Sinner . A romance set in post- World War I Brittany , the movie was withheld from release for failing to clearly set forth its narrative, though M-G-M acknowledged its photographic beauty and artistic merit. Sternberg

2790-651: The relative safety of the Shanghai International Settlement. Two bombs from a damaged Republic of China Air Force bomber were accidentally released and exploded in front of Great World. The pilot, fearing the plane would crash, had intended to release the bombs into the large uninhabited space of the nearby Shanghai Race Course , but the bombs were released too early. About two thousand people, made up of shoppers, passers-by, Chinese and foreigners, and refugees who were standing outside Great World, were killed or injured. However, it's believed that

2852-479: The request of impresario Max Reinhardt to explore an offer to manage stage productions, but discovered he was not suited to the task. Sternberg went to England, where he rendezvoused with Riza Royce, a New York actress originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who had served as an assistant on the ill-fated A Woman of the Sea . They wed on July 6, 1927. Sternberg and Royce would have a tempestuous marriage spanning three years. In August 1928, Riza von Sternberg obtained

2914-550: The rise of Dietrich and the fall of Jannings" in their respective careers. Riza von Sternberg, who accompanied her spouse to Berlin, discerned that director and star were sexually involved. When Dietrich arrived in the United States in April 1930, Mrs. von Sternberg personally presented her with $ 100,000 libel lawsuits for public remarks made by the star that her marriage was failing, and a $ 500,000 suit for alienation of [Josef] Sternberg's affections. The Sternberg-Dietrich-Royce scandal

2976-570: The scenes with emotional intensity. He is also credited with having initiated the gangster film genre with his silent era movie Underworld (1927). Sternberg's themes typically offer the spectacle of an individual's desperate struggle to maintain their personal integrity as they sacrifice themselves for lust or love. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Morocco (1930) and Shanghai Express (1932). Shortly before his death in 1969, his autobiography, Fun in

3038-535: The studio publicity or to his movies' commercial success, enjoyed a degree of control over these pictures that permitted him to conceive and execute these works with Dietrich. Seeking to capitalize on the immense European success of The Blue Angel , though not yet released to American audiences, Paramount launched the Hollywood production of Morocco , an intrigue-romance starring Gary Cooper , Dietrich and Adolphe Menjou . The all-out promotional campaign declared Dietrich "the woman all women want to see", providing

3100-449: The studio's behest, agreed to "cut down to manageable length" fellow director Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March . Sternberg's willingness to accept the assignment had the unhappy side effect of "destroying" his relationship with von Stroheim. The Drag Net , a lost film, is believed to be a sequel to Underworld . The Docks of New York , "today the most popular of Sternberg's silent films", combines both spectacle and psychology in

3162-530: The war, Sternberg left Brady's Fort Lee operation and embarked on a peripatetic existence in America and Europe offering his skills "as cutter, editor, writer and assistant director" to various film studios. The Origins of the Sternberg "von" The nobiliary particle "von" – used to indicate a family descending from nobility – was inserted gratuitously to Sternberg's name on the grounds that it served to achieve an orderly configuration of personnel credits. The producer and matinee idol Elliott Dexter suggested

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3224-412: The young cabaret singer would reduce him to a "spectacular cuckold." Dietrich became an international star overnight and followed Sternberg to Hollywood to produce six more collaborations at Paramount. Film historian Andrew Sarris contends that The Blue Angel is Sternberg's "most brutal and least humorous" work of his oeuvre and yet the one film that the director's "most severe detractors will concede

3286-603: Was "in and out of the papers", but public awareness of the "ugly scenes" was largely concealed by Paramount executives. On June 5, 1931, the divorce was finalized providing $ 25,000 cash settlement to Mrs. Sternberg and a 5-year annual alimony of $ 1,200. In March 1932, the now divorced Riza Royce dropped her libel and alienation charges against Dietrich. Sternberg and Dietrich would unite to make six brilliant and controversial films for Paramount: Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil

3348-520: Was an Austrian-born filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major Hollywood studios. He is best known for his film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, including the highly regarded Paramount/UFA production The Blue Angel (1930). Sternberg's finest works are noteworthy for their striking pictorial compositions, dense décor, chiaroscuro illumination, and relentless camera motion, endowing

3410-647: Was berthed, in front of the area of the Shanghai International Settlement , the location of Great World. It was the second day of the Battle of Shanghai between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan and the beginning of full-scale World War II combat operations. Great World had thrown open its doors for refugees fleeing the fighting in the Chinese and Japanese zones of the city for

3472-530: Was closed following the SARS epidemic in 2003. It was reopened in March 2017. The basic layout of the complex has remained the same since the 1928 rebuilding. While the entertainment options have been updated over the years (with motion pictures early on and karaoke more recently, for example), some elements remain the same. One legendary feature is the series of distorting mirrors near the entrance, which have provided simple entertainment to visitors for more than

3534-506: Was deemed to be too experimental in concept and technique, and the Pickford-Sternberg project was cancelled. Sternberg's The Salvation Hunters is "his most explicitly personal work", with the exception of his final picture Anatahan (1953). His distinctive style is already in evidence, both visually and dramatically: veils and nets filter our view of the actors, and "psychological conflict rather than physical action" has

3596-471: Was dismayed by the film Sternberg created with cameraman Paul Ivano , a "highly visual, almost Expressionistic " work, completely lacking in the humanism that he had anticipated. Though Sternberg reshot a number of scenes, Chaplin declined to distribute the picture and the prints were ultimately destroyed. The failure of Sternberg's promising collaboration with Chaplin was a temporary blow to his professional reputation. In June 1926 he travelled to Berlin at

3658-714: Was next tasked to direct film stars Mae Murray and Roy D'Arcy in The Masked Bride , both of whom had played in Stroheim's highly acclaimed The Merry Widow (1925). Exasperated with his lack of control over any aspect of the production, Sternberg quit in two weeks – his final gesture turning the camera to the ceiling before walking off the set. Metro arranged a cancellation of his contract in August 1925. Frenchman Robert Florey , Sternberg's assistant director, reported that Sternberg's Stroheim-like histrionics emerged on

3720-445: Was precarious due to the long string of commercial disappointments. Sternberg was summoned to Berlin by Paramount's sister studio, UFA in 1929 to direct Emil Jannings in his first sound production, The Blue Angel . It would be "the most important film" of Sternberg's career. Sternberg cast the then little-known Marlene Dietrich as Lola Lola, the female lead and nemesis of Jannings character Professor Immanuel Rath, whose passion for

3782-478: Was rebuilt in 1928 in an eclectic style borrowing largely from European Baroque , topped by a distinctive four-storey tower which quickly became a landmark. In 1931, Great World changed hands, bought out by another magnate, Huang Jinrong . On 14 August 1937 it was the site of the Great World bombing, or "Black Saturday", and also the location of where the Imperial Japanese Navy flagship Izumo

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3844-428: Was such that both Sternberg and Dietrich were awarded with contracts for three more films and generous increases in salary. The film earned Academy Award nominations in four categories. Dishonored , Sternberg's second Hollywood film, featuring Dietrich opposite Victor McLaglen , was completed before Morocco was released. A film of considerable levity but plot-wise one of his slightest works, this espionage-thriller

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