El ángel azul

Joseph von Sternberg 'packaged' his muse, Marlene Dietrich to become a world star with "The Blue Angel". The disturbing story of a revue entertainer (Dietrich) and the middle aged professor(Emil Jannings)who falls madly in love with, and later is destroyed by her, based on the novel "Professor Unrat".

Many unforgettable songs by Friedrich Hollander are featured, most noteworthy of course "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt" ("Falling in Love Again") and "Ich bin die feche Lola" ("They Call Me Naughty Lola").

There is an English language version available (filmed simultaneously for an intended International release), but I recommend the original German with subtitles. Many effects are lost with the former. I can highly recommend this film, a must for fans of either the stars or the director!*****

Today, most people know this film as featuring Marlene Dietrich's signature tune "Falling in Love Again." But it was the first sound film to be made in Germany; and is the first great sound film to be made anywhere. Although it exists also in an English version that was made at the same time, both Dietrich and Jannings give better performances in their native language; and, as the sound is rather poor, it is easier to follow in German with the English sub-titles. Jannings was the first actor to win an Academy Award (though not for this film) and his performance as the professor who is lead to ruin by a femme fatale remains one of the memorable film performances. Fans of Dietrich should not miss this film which brought her international success. This is one of those films that only grows with continued viewing. If you were fond of Cabaret, then this is the real Germany between the World Wars. Highly recommended.

... As I was surprised at the way college students behave and the way that they were treated in Weimar Germany as depicted in this film. Professor Immanual Rath (Emil Jennings) behaves tyrannically towards his students, and they try to undermine him at every turn. They mercilessly bully one student just because he wants no part of their nighttime carousing. In short, they act like high school kids, not college students, so I am somewhat wondering if this was a college as I understand the word in the United States. But I digress.

Rath finds postcards with music hall performer Lola (Marlene Dietrich) on them among his students' things, and initially goes to The Blue Angel to catch his students in the act of - I dunno, acting like college students? - again, I'm not sure why there's the need to so tightly control the behavior of adults. But Rath gets caught up in the atmosphere himself. He's been shut inside his ivory tower so long that he's forgotten what the outside world is like, and once he ventures out, it's game over. He's utterly unequipped to see Lola for who she really is - a woman who makes a living by charming men, and who does a good job of it. When he has the opportunity to talk to her and becomes sympathetic, he suddenly sees her as a victim of what we call today human trafficking rather than a corrupter of his students.

The more time he spends with her, the more he falls for her, but by proposing to her, he again puts her into a box in which she doesn't fit, that of a wife who will do the wifely duties he expects of her. Lola, though never explaining herself and that's part of the greatness of the film, seems amused by Rath's naive and simple ways and goes willingly into the marriage. But, again, Roth doesn't realize that marriage probably does not mean to Lola what it means to him.

Although Jannings puts in a powerhouse performance, I understand why Marlene Dietrich stole the show. Rath changes drastically over the course of the film, and he has to sell that, but Dietrich has the more subtle job of selling the changes in how Rath sees Lola without changing who Lola fundamentally is. Director Von Sternberg gives her much less to do than in their subsequent collaborations, but she does the most she can with the material.

There's lots that's never said. For one thing there is, from the first time Rath enters The Blue Angel, the haunting presence of "The Clown". The actor who plays him is not uncredited- his role is billed as "The Clown". Rath sees him with that constant sullen expression, hears him being scolded and chided by the empresario of the troupe, and you never hear him speak. Considering all that happens, I'm wondering if he too is a past husband of Lola's. One that she also cast aside once she got bored and perhaps never bothered to divorce. After all, she can't help it, as she is so fond of saying.

The only bad thing I can say about it is the pacing, which seems to be a problem in many Von Sternberg films. But it is worth sticking with to the end.

I think this is more a commentary on the human condition than it is a movie review. von Sternberg presents Professor Rath as pompous, rather inflexible and naive, and then reduces him gradually to a pitiful, self-debasing wretch - much like Tyrone Power's character in "Nightmare Alley". Rath, appears to me, not so much the victim as a drunken jaywalker who wanders out into traffic and is totally shocked when he is hit by a truck. Emil Jannings, without doubt, delivers everything that von Sternberg could have asked for.

I have never been a big Marlene Dietrich fan, but I have to admit that, in this early effort, her utter sexuality and the casual way she dispenses it is hypnotic. Her character is also complex. Between her first encounter with Rath and those final scenes, her attitude toward him changes from amusement and ridicule to concern, pity, and even affection. His return to his home town and his descent into total degradation is painful to watch, yet she chooses this opportunity to humiliate him even further by offering herself to Mazeppa while he watches. I'm baffled.

The corruption and hopelessness of the German cafe circuit is a perfect backdrop for this study of the human condition. When one reaches their absolute nadir - like Rath - there are few choices left. Suicide, violent hostility, or if you are lucky - the determination and will to climb out of the cesspool. Rath was a day late and a reichsmark short. I would like to think that if he had more time he would have made it.

Proper and respectable Emil Jannings, a teacher at a boys high school takes quite an interest in their moral well being. Seems there's this naughty establishment called The Blue Angel in his town where women have been known to entertain in various states of undress. Some of his boys have some postcards of one of the dancers and Jannings catches them with it. After confiscating the material, Jannings decides to go down to the Blue Angel and tell them not to be catering to minors.

Of course he takes one look at the subject of those naughty postcards and since it turns out to be Marlene Dietrich, he realizes his own education has been sadly neglected.

He's spotted the kids in the establishment, but they've spotted him as well. From an authoritarian figure, Jannings is now a figure of derision and has no authority in or out of the classroom. He marries Marlene and tours with her company as a clown. A return to his hometown proves to be more than he can bear.

Though Marlene Dietrich became an international sex symbol from this film and got a Hollywood contract as a result, the film is really the story of Jannings, his downfall, his humiliation, his degradation. Their respective career paths were really meeting halfway in this film. She was going to America on the strength of this film, Jannings was returning to Germany where he became a very big star and leader of Adolph Hitler's amen corner in German cinema

In the supporting cast is also Kurt Gerron who is a magician and manager of the troupe of entertainers Marlene and Jannings are part of. His life had the worst tragedy of all, as a Jew he met death in Auschwitz, but not after undergoing a lot of humiliation before. Not unlike what Jannings had in the film, but this was real life.

The Blue Angel is a milestone film for many people and in an indirect way for Adolph Hitler as well since he got his biggest film star from the cast. Still though it's a stunning bit of cinema with performances that still hold up very well today.