"Angel" from 1937 is a Dietrich-Lubitsch collaboration that didn't come off - in fact, this was the last film Dietrich made for Paramount, after which she was labeled box-office poison. You can see why this film didn't help, though she is photographed like a dream and dressed divinely by Travis Banton.
Based on a play, this is a rather dull story. The neglected, bored wife, Maria (Dietrich) of a very busy diplomat (Herbert Marshall) flies to Paris and goes to a salon run by a countess (Laura Hope Crews) who is an old friend of hers. It's apparently a high-class brothel. While waiting to see her, she meets Tony Halton (Melvyn Douglas), looking for a delightful evening. She agrees to meet him for dinner. The affair isn't shown, but one assumes they consummated their relationship. She disappears without telling him her name or her knowing his.
Later on, he runs into an old friend, who is Maria's husband. Maria and Tony meet again - under awkward circumstances.
This isn't a comedy, and it really isn't much of a drama either, with dull spots enlivened by the supporting cast - Crews, Edward Everett Horton, and Ernest Cossart, who plays the butler. (He tells his fiancée over the phone, "If you don't tell me where you learned to rumba, we're through.")
Directed with the usual Lubitsch subtlety, this is just okay, lacking the bubbly champagne touch that made Lubitsch's work in films like "The Shop Around the Corner," "Ninotchka," "To Be or Not to Be" and so many other great films of his.
Based on a play, this is a rather dull story. The neglected, bored wife, Maria (Dietrich) of a very busy diplomat (Herbert Marshall) flies to Paris and goes to a salon run by a countess (Laura Hope Crews) who is an old friend of hers. It's apparently a high-class brothel. While waiting to see her, she meets Tony Halton (Melvyn Douglas), looking for a delightful evening. She agrees to meet him for dinner. The affair isn't shown, but one assumes they consummated their relationship. She disappears without telling him her name or her knowing his.
Later on, he runs into an old friend, who is Maria's husband. Maria and Tony meet again - under awkward circumstances.
This isn't a comedy, and it really isn't much of a drama either, with dull spots enlivened by the supporting cast - Crews, Edward Everett Horton, and Ernest Cossart, who plays the butler. (He tells his fiancée over the phone, "If you don't tell me where you learned to rumba, we're through.")
Directed with the usual Lubitsch subtlety, this is just okay, lacking the bubbly champagne touch that made Lubitsch's work in films like "The Shop Around the Corner," "Ninotchka," "To Be or Not to Be" and so many other great films of his.