The incredible growth of Shanghai over 20 years is evident in the following photographs sent by our Aeronautical Correspondent , Abra.
Mysterious Shanghai captured the attention of Darwin , regarded as a Chinese town because of its large Chinese population, when the 1932 American film Shanghai Express , starring Marlene Dietrich, was screened in the open-air Star Theatre , just across the road from the Victoria Hotel ,run for years by the Fong Lim family.
In 1943 the film was remade into Night Plane From Chungking and then Peking Express in 1951.
An elegant woman said to have been an airline hostess on early flights into Shanghai retired to Alice Springs, her son a renowned aviation and defence journalist who wrote a book about the Qantas Kangaroo Route .
