Die blonde Venus (1932) 605b1w

Die blonde Venus: Directed by Josef von Sternberg. With Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Dickie Moore. A cabaret singer takes up with a millionaire to pay for her gravely ill husband’s operation.

“This is the 5th of the 7 legendary collaborations between Dietrich and von Sternberg, and the only one set in the U.S. (the other 6 are set in , Morocco, Europe, China, Russia, and Spain). All of the principals, including the director, were born in Europe. For some reason it is my personal favorite, and the only one I enjoy watching repeatedly. Probably this is for the outrageous musical numbers, which display Dietrichu0026#39;s incredibly self-assured command of her environment (what can top u0026quot;Hot Voodoou0026quot;, but I really really love the glittering white top-hat and tails number particularly). This would have been the only time during filming that von Sternberg could not totally exercise his robotic direction of her; she gets to be more u0026quot;herselfu0026quot; as a real performer, and her energy-level comes way up. Also Iu0026#39;d venture that since the story is set in the U.S. it makes it more challenging to present her as u0026quot;exoticu0026quot; (as opposed to, say, China). I love how von Sternberg plays her characteru0026#39;s flight South, into increasingly lurid, run-down, and crude environments. The technical side of movie-making had made huge strides; film-stock was becoming much more uniform and high-contrast, and sound-recording had improved greatly in just a few years; von Sternberg was able to make full use of this. The film feels snappy and tightly-paced, and has mostly abandoned silent-film mannerisms.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn comparison to their next 2 films, this one feels quite grounded. The subsequent u0026quot;Scarlett Empressu0026quot; and u0026quot;Devil is a Womanu0026quot; would be increasingly baroque and outrageous excursions into fantastic style, excess, and European decadence, which kind of left their American audiences in the dust – and helped Dietrich land on the infamous u0026quot;box-office poisonu0026quot; list.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is a pre-Code film, and it routinely tweaks conventional morals. The nightclub in which Dietrich goes to work is clearly a high-class u0026quot;speakeasyu0026quot;; Prohibition was still in effect at the time. Also, its always a bit confusing for modern audiences when dollar-amounts are mentioned in old films. The personal check which Dietrich receives from Cary Grant is for $200 as I recall; in current dollars that would be something more like $2,500 and was an amount which would have set Depression-era audiences reeling with its clear implication of what Grant had received in return!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is the first chance Cary Grant had to do a major co-starring role, and its the earliest of his films available on video. Another IMDb u0026quot;commentu0026quot; mentions Dietrich and Mae West supposedly u0026quot;falling in loveu0026quot; with him, which is a laugh! Dietrich (in her daughteru0026#39;s bio) referred to him as the u0026quot;shirt-selleru0026quot; (Grant was selling menu0026#39;s shirts at the studio, as a sideline to make extra money); West preferred, to put it delicately, men who were a little more red meat (I think that Grant was already living with Randolph Scott at the time of filming; they used to attend Hollywood A-list parties as a couple, which Scott could get away with partially because of his very blue-blood East Coast family connections).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOriginally available on LaserDisc (as a 2-disc set with u0026quot;Shanghai Expressu0026quot;).”