Tag Archives: Joseph Cotten

Peking Express 1951

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Paramount Pictures

Remake! Today’s movie review changes direction (now Shanghai to Peking) and heavily copies 1932’s Shanghai Express including reusing several train shots from that film.

This film noir feature is a rather tepid affair, starring Joseph Cotton as Doctor Michael Bachlin and Corinne Calvet as Danielle Grenier. Still, there are some redeeming parts including a train-Jeep chase at the end, with guns a blazing.

It’s a mish-mosh of Southern Pacific Railroad locomotives and equipment done up with Chinese characters. Let’s check it out!

“Looks like Charlie Chan up there, man!” Nope. It’s white boy Marvin Miller, as the mysterious Kwon onboard the Tientsen-Pukow train, sporting heavy-duty Hollywood Oriental makeup. More about him later.

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Shadow of a Doubt 1943

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Universal Pictures

Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten star alongside the Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP) in this Hitchcock classic. I know. It’s not particularly obscure, but I already had a DVD lying around…

Anyways, the two train scenes in this picture feature steam engines and old heavyweight passenger equipment. The coming and going of Uncle Charlie (Cotten) happens at the Santa Rosa train depot which is still in existence as a visitor’s center.

During filming, NWP was a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad and we are treated to 3 different locomotives: #140, an Alco-built 4-6-0 (seen above), #142 a Baldwin-built 4-6-0 (seen below) and #2708, a Baldwin-built 2-8-0. A sister NWP 4-6-0 #112 survives and is preserved at the California State Railroad Museum…the only NWP steamer remaining.

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A little boy is mesmerized by the smoke, steam and churning drivers as NWP #142 arrives in Santa Rosa with Uncle Charlie aboard.

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