Marlene Dietrich is a newly orphaned country girl who gets sent to her aunt, Alison Skipworth. Soon, Brian Aherne, the sculptor who lives across the street, decides she would be a good model for his work based on Solomon's Song of Songs and Beethoven's Pathetique. After about half an hour, they are a couple, running up and down the flowered mountains which Berlin seems to be liberally supplied with.
Enter Lionel Atwill, a military baron, who wears a forage cap with a skull on it and a furry panache that sticks straight up. He marries Marlene and takes her to his schloss, which is liberally decorated with phallic symbols and his mistress. Things turn out poorly, and Marlene becomes a good-time girl who sings cynical songs.
Isn't it always that way? While Mamoulian has a lavishly directed set, alas, he cannot raise a performance out of DIetrich to make us think she is a good girl in an early scene. She disrobes with the easy fluidity of someone who has spent a lot of time naked since she was twelve, and shows no shyness as she models nude for Aherne, after about ten seconds of his "It's art!" speech. Aherne is ok. Atwill is disgusting and disgusting and Skipworth is disgusting and funny.
Enter Lionel Atwill, a military baron, who wears a forage cap with a skull on it and a furry panache that sticks straight up. He marries Marlene and takes her to his schloss, which is liberally decorated with phallic symbols and his mistress. Things turn out poorly, and Marlene becomes a good-time girl who sings cynical songs.
Isn't it always that way? While Mamoulian has a lavishly directed set, alas, he cannot raise a performance out of DIetrich to make us think she is a good girl in an early scene. She disrobes with the easy fluidity of someone who has spent a lot of time naked since she was twelve, and shows no shyness as she models nude for Aherne, after about ten seconds of his "It's art!" speech. Aherne is ok. Atwill is disgusting and disgusting and Skipworth is disgusting and funny.