Cast:
Emil Jannings (Professor Immanuel Rath), Marlene Dietrich (Lola Lola), Kurt Gerron (Kiepert, the magician), Rosa Valetti (Guste, the magician's wife), Hans Albers (Mazeppa, the strongman), Reinhold Bernt (The clown), Eduard von Winterstein (The director of school), Hans Roth (The caretaker of the secondary school), Rolf Müller (Pupil Angst), Roland Varno (Pupil Lohmann), and Carl Balhaus (Pupil Ertzum) Directed by Josef von Sternberg (#1325 - Underworld, #1337 - Shanghai Express, #1837 - Thunderbolt)
Review:
So, how does one follow up their first sound film with a further quality one? Josef von Sternberg, fresh from the success of Thunderbolt (1929), was summoned by Universum Film A.G (usually referred to as UFA) for a project that would see Emil Jannings in his first sound production. He had been born in Switzerland to American and German parents, but he was raised in Germany. He eventually gained success in both Germany and America, and he was the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Jannings collaborated with Sternberg previously with The Last Command (1928). However, it would be more of a boon for the little-known actress cast against Jannings that proved more important. Berlin native Marlene Dietrich had made her first appearance on film in 1923 to go alongside stage work in musicals and revues. She auditioned for the role along with several others (such as Lucie Mannheim) and proceeded to win the audition and then basically steal the show from Jannings with this film, the first of seven she would do with Sternberg, whose infatuation with her led to divorce from his wife. Jannings had returned to Germany after 1929 saw his thick accent go out of vogue with the sound era; while he continued to do films for years, this is probably his last memorable one before the Nazi era. In later years, labeled an "artist of the state", he starred in several moves intended to promote the cause of Nazi Germany (ironically, Dietrich was a key activist against Nazism and later called Jannings a "ham"). Jannings tried to defend his decisions by saying that “Open resistance would have meant a concentration camp” (incidentally, his co-star in Gerron and his director in Sternberg were both Jewish, and Gerron was murdered in a concentration camp when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands). The Blue Angel was the tenth film directed by Sternberg, and it is loosely based off the 1905 novel Professor Unrat, oder Das Ende eines Tyrannen (in German, "Unrat" means garbage) by Heinrich Mann, with the movie diverting in the second half of the book (which mainly means the movie is more downbeat); Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller, Robert Liebmann, and Sternberg. The novel has been adapted multiple times, one of them being a 1959 adaptation for 20th Century Fox by Edward Dmytryk that saw Sternberg sue because he claimed to have the remake rights. An Indian movie was made with V. Shantaram's Pinjara (1972) and then again with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Lola (1981).
There exist two versions of the movie, hewing to the tradition that happened with certain films of the time that saw actors doing the same movie in multiple languages (the easiest example being the 1931 Dracula, but that one had different directors and cast). You could check out the English version (only just discovered years ago) if you really need to see German-born actors like the main trio say lines they already say in German in English that is shorter than the 108-minute runtime of this film. Regardless, what you have here is a wonderous descent into madness in obsessive desire. It really is a point of irony that Jannings was eclipsed by Dietrich when it comes to mainstream attention, because he really does pull off an interesting performance when it comes to the art of watching a man crumble right before your eyes. It isn't a pry for sympathy or just time spent watching for the great fall, finding a careful balance of man against the enigmatic qualities of the woman that finds him bound and basically gagged. And then of course there is Dietrich, practically brimming like a flame bright enough to attract all the moths. Her cabaret act (one signified by her singing of "Falling in Love Again" [Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt]) is certainly one to help introduce a great presence to the screen in ideal quality when it comes to pointing out the hypocrisies that come with the loss of power for the illusion of love. One loses themselves in the pursuit of what they think is love, and she plays the kind of person you would see yourself losing your head (and more) for. She transfixes you by simply being there as an object of great presence and timing. Gerron makes for a useful showman in huckster confidence that could only be done by someone with worthy interesting in humor without overselling it. The film builds and builds itself to the culmination of all that ever can be and all that could ever be when it comes to taking grand steps to the path of supposed happiness and seeing what happens when the step comes with a great price, where trading power for desire sees everything turn to dust. The scenes of a man once at the helm of a desk with great power now reduced to languishing to being the second in a romantic partnership is communicated with worthy pictorial power by Sternberg. He captures the essence of obsession with a pretty good experience that one should consider watching for themselves to see what the fuss is all about with the movie that started it all with Dietrich and Sternberg.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
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