We’re excited to bring you the first round of 2018 Festival podcasts. Between now and the 2019 Festival (March 14-27, 2019), we will release a series of podcasts each week.
Be the first to hear the recordings by subscribing to our podcast channel on iTunes, Stticher or Google Play, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can share your thoughts on the talks using #silf2018.
It’s time to go back and explore Shanghai’s Badlands…
Immerse yourself in 1940’s Shanghai with this astonishing story of two men whose lives intertwine in crime and twisted friendship. In a city under siege Viennese Joe Farren rose to fame by cashing in on Shanghai’s desperate pleasure seeking. King of the chorus lines, his name was splashed in neon across the infamous Badlands nightclub ‘Farren’s’. American fugitive Jack Riley, his fingertips acid-burnt, found a future in Shanghai as ‘The Slots King’. ‘Dapper Joe’ and ‘Lucky Jack’ collided, clashed and came together again in a frantic struggle to survive the city’s last days. Paul French resurrects the denizens of old Shanghai’s ganglands, the drug-running, the gambling, and the graft, vividly restoring this long overlooked side of the city’s history.
