This is the Marlene Dietrich film which opens with six supposedly naked women swimming and later her stripping out of the bulky gorilla suit on stage to sing a gauche incomprehensible number. Having got those admittedly interesting bits out of the way what we have here is an incredibly well made work of Art from Paramount's wonder year of 1932, complete with problems but so simple that it defies any meaningful criticism.
Herbert Marshall contracts some radioactive disease, his devoted wife Dietrich as ex nightclub singer knows how to raise the enormous sum of USD 300 to send him to Europe to be cured – and Cary Grant as a rich politician is implied to be the lucky guy! This eventually leads to a falling out and Dietrich and son are on the run from Marshall. It's a simple pre-Code soap opera directed by Josef von Sternberg, who managed to impart an atmosphere, majesty and his usual Code of Ethics to the proceedings that set it apart from most of the others from the time. Every actor is at the top of their game from Dietrich down to the uncredited Hattie McDaniel, the production values fantastic, with photography, posing and lighting thoughtful and gleaming at all times. Marshalls' beetling blackening brows were never used to greater dramatic effect than in here; Sternberg already knew how best to portray Dietrich. Favourite bits: the almost unbelievable elegance and style of Dietrich and Grant and the interior of his house when Marshall was away – a masterclass of film making in ninety seconds, but unfortunately immediately followed by a rather clumsy back projection; You Little So And So by Whiting & Robin droned by Dietrich at the elegant Star Club; the frank scenes in New Orleans with the skinny and hopeful Sidney Toler; the charming inevitable climax but enigmatic ending.
It's a straightforward love and honour tale handled so expertly the ninety minutes fly by. I do wonder sometimes how Sternberg would film this and his other classics if he could return today; I probably know my answer to this but could the complex technology and looser morals of today lead him to make a better film, or should we be grateful for the simpler technology and greater knowledge of and adherence to a moral code that could help produce such wondrous films like this?
Herbert Marshall contracts some radioactive disease, his devoted wife Dietrich as ex nightclub singer knows how to raise the enormous sum of USD 300 to send him to Europe to be cured – and Cary Grant as a rich politician is implied to be the lucky guy! This eventually leads to a falling out and Dietrich and son are on the run from Marshall. It's a simple pre-Code soap opera directed by Josef von Sternberg, who managed to impart an atmosphere, majesty and his usual Code of Ethics to the proceedings that set it apart from most of the others from the time. Every actor is at the top of their game from Dietrich down to the uncredited Hattie McDaniel, the production values fantastic, with photography, posing and lighting thoughtful and gleaming at all times. Marshalls' beetling blackening brows were never used to greater dramatic effect than in here; Sternberg already knew how best to portray Dietrich. Favourite bits: the almost unbelievable elegance and style of Dietrich and Grant and the interior of his house when Marshall was away – a masterclass of film making in ninety seconds, but unfortunately immediately followed by a rather clumsy back projection; You Little So And So by Whiting & Robin droned by Dietrich at the elegant Star Club; the frank scenes in New Orleans with the skinny and hopeful Sidney Toler; the charming inevitable climax but enigmatic ending.
It's a straightforward love and honour tale handled so expertly the ninety minutes fly by. I do wonder sometimes how Sternberg would film this and his other classics if he could return today; I probably know my answer to this but could the complex technology and looser morals of today lead him to make a better film, or should we be grateful for the simpler technology and greater knowledge of and adherence to a moral code that could help produce such wondrous films like this?