VIDEO: Movie Review: "The Blue Angel" (1930) - Marlene Dietrich

As I was saying, it's hot in this corner of the forest. Too hot to go outside -- I'm neither a mad dog nor an Englishman -- so this afternoon I plopped myself down in front of the idiot's lantern, firing up the old remote to see what's on. Well, actually, I wasn't trying to see what was on so much as what else was on. Hey, I'm a man. [Credit to Jerry Seinfeld, please. Ed.]

I was pleased and ah-mazed to find the English version of  The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel), a 1930 German psycho-drama in the guise of a musical comedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Kurt Gerron. 

The screenplay was written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Robert Liebmann, with uncredited contributions by Herr von Sternberg. It is based on Heinrich Mann's 1905 novel Professor Unrat (Professor Filth) and set in an unspecified northern German port city.

The Blue Angel presents the tragic transformation of a respectable professor into a cabaret clown and his descent into madness. Here's the trailer.

 

The film, now considered a classic of German cinema, was the first feature-length German sound film. It brought Marlene Dietrich international fame, and also introduced her signature song, "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)". 

The film was shot simultaneously in German- and English-language versions. Though the English version was once thought to be lost, a print was discovered in a German film archive, restored and screened at San Francisco's Berlin and Beyond film festival in 2009. That's the one I watched, but if you understand German, that version is considered to be "obviously superior" -- longer and not marred by actors struggling with English pronunciation.

And now... spoiler alert... here's a synopsis of the plot. Immanuel Rath (Jannings) is a professor at a Gymnasium (high school for brighter students) in Weimar Germany. The boys disrespect and play pranks on him. Rath punishes several of his students for circulating photographs of the beautiful Lola Lola, the headliner at the local cabaret called The Blue Angel. 

Rath goes to the club, hoping to catch the boys. While chasing after his naughty students, he finds Lola backstage and becomes infatuated with her. When he returns to the cabaret the following evening to return a pair of panties that was smuggled into his coat by one of his students, he winds up defending her from an aggressive patron. Lola is charmed by his chivalry, and serenades him from the stage. 

The next morning, Rath wakes up in Lola's bed. After having breakfast with Lola, Rath arrives late to school. Knowing of his visits to the Blue Angel, his pupils are openly mocking and contemptuous of him. Their misbehaviour attracts a school official who, after dismissing the students, makes it clear to Rath that marrying a woman like Lola would end his career. 

In spite of the warning, Rath resigns his position at the school and marries Lola. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as Rath becomes humiliatingly dependent on Lola. Over time, he sinks lower and lower, first selling dirty postcards, and then becoming a clown in Lola's troupe to pay the bills. 

His growing insecurities about Lola's profession as a "shared woman" eventually consume him with lust and jealousy as Lola and the rest of the troupe lose respect for him. 

Five years after Rath's resignation from the school, the troupe returns to The Blue Angel, where everyone attends to watch the former professor play a clown. On stage, Rath is humiliated by the magician Kiepert, who breaks eggs on Rath's head, and by seeing Lola embrace and kiss the strongman Mazeppa. Rath is enraged to the point of insanity. 

He attempts to strangle Lola, but Mazeppa and others subdue him and lock him in a straitjacket. Later that night, Rath is released and he revisits his old classroom. Rejected, humiliated and destitute, he dies clutching the desk at which he once taught.

Some comedy, eh! But Germans have never been known for their sense of humour.

Now a word from the chair... by which I mean the item of furniture on which la Dietrich is posed on one of the most famous stills from the film. We see in the topmost photo, her classic cabaret pose. Her reclining position with one leg elevated was selected after a dozen other attitudes were tested and discarded.

In the photo under the video, we see her straddling the chair "...imperiously, magisterially, fully the measurer of men in the audience..." The pose was considered erotic at the time, and many readers will find it so today. It can't be denied that Marlene Dietrich has gorgeous gams -- a matched set! -- and the poses with the chair show them to their best advantage. 

Other directors and actresses have noticed, and it will be obvious from the remaining photos that her cabarat performance in The Blue Angel informed the excellent turns by Liza Minnelli, as Sally Bowles in Cabaret (1972) and Madeline Kahn as Lili (yes, "Lili") Von Shtupp in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), the last being the only movie which was actually a comedy.

Three great cabaret scenes by three great actresses [I'm not sure we can allow that word. Why not "actors"? Ed.] who can also sing and dance. Which is best? Which one has the best legs? You be the judge!