Marrocos

Marlene Dietrich is aboard ship to Mogador. An officer explains to fellow passenger Adolphe Menjou she's probably a vaudeville performer; they call one-way passages like her a suicide ticket. Her first night performing at Paul Porcasi's place she's a sensation. Soon she's beginning a tentative relationship with Foreign Legion private Gary Cooper. But Menjou is still in there, pitching.

Josef von Sternberg & Miss Dietrich's first American film still shows a lot of hesitancy with sound. There are vast silences between lines, giving this movie an air of being a chapter-heading show, with the lines explaining what is going on.... but you don't need to be told, the heat is palpable: not just the sexual heat, but the desert heat. Unfortunately, the prints available are not in great shape, and Lee Garmes' sharp images of von Sternberg's always rococo set designs are as much inferred as seen.

My favourite Sternberg-Dietrich vehicle will always be "The Scarlet Empress", but all their films are worth more than a cursory glance. They're, to my mind, the most interesting thing to come out of the early thirties (and, although dated, far less so than more recognized classics of the era because of their unadulterated FUN).

Sternberg made art department COUNTRIES for Dietrich to languish in, true in all their Hollywood films, and still dazzling today. Plot, narrative are shaky, sometimes almost nonexistent, allowing for spectacle to take over, and what a spectacle it all is! Dietrich is probably one of the most macabre, knowingly lewd feminine manifestations ever to grace the silver screen (well, at least Sternberg was knowing, Dietrich herself....?). Highly recommended.

MOROCCO is first and foremost an atmospheric film. Anyone who looks for more didn't understand what Josef von Sternberg created here. It's pure atmosphere. A reverie. The film is at times creaky but it's understandable because it was made over 70 years ago! There are several stand-out scenes in MOROCCO, including the famous kiss scene and the one when Marlene breaks a pearl necklace but what makes this Sternberg film so memorable is the stunning ending. Suddenly, the creaky film looks positively contemporary. Are we really in 1930s and not the wild 1970s?!?! The brilliant ending MAKES the movie. Without it, it would probably have been an enjoyably moody but average 1930s flick. With it, MOROCCO becomes a timeless classic. It's probably the most stunning ending ever made, with so many layers of meaning with that one prolonged static shot. It's visually brilliant and sexy on so many levels.

"Talkies" had been around just a couple years when Paramount made "Morocco," but watching this film one might think it was a late silent movie. That's because of the dialog - or paucity of it. "Morocco" is a film with few lines and even fewer words in those few lines. But then, the two leads in this early desert flick never were known for their verbosity or lengthy lines of dialog. Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich both grew up in the silent era, and had many films under their belts by 1930. And, both of their careers were noted for roles with little dialog. As very good actors, their expressions and movements spoke a lot.

This is a good movie that gives a feel for the desert, a foreign legion setting, and life in colonial Africa. The time is during the Rif war of 1911-27, between Spain with France as an ally, and Berber tribes from the Rif (mountainous) region of Morocco. The film is based on German novel, "Amy Jolly, the Woman from Marrakesh," by Benno Vigny. Dietrich plays Mademoiselle Jolly, who is a cabaret singer. She is the woman of a love triangle that includes Cooper. Cooper is in a sultry role as Legionnaire Tom Brown.

Cooper was 29 and Dietrich 28 when this film was made. Both got their starts in silent films - Cooper in the U.S. and Dietrich in Germany. Cooper had been in some 50 movies before this and Dietrich had been discovered in Berlin. This was her Hollywood debut.

This is a good early look in sound films of two great stars of the silver screen. Jolly performs a couple of numbers that are risqué.

While traveling from Europe to Morocco by ship, the cabaret singer Mademoiselle Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich) meets the wealthy Monsieur La Bessiere (Adolphe Menjou) that offers to "help" her in Morocco, but Amy refuses his offer. Mademoiselle Amy Jolly is hired by Lo Tinto (Paul Porcasi) to sing in his nightclub and in her debut, she meets Monsieur La Bessiere again having dinner with his friends Adjutant Caesar (Ullrich Haupt) and his wife Madame Caesar (Eve Southern). He invites Amy to stay with him, but the singer feels attracted by the lady-killer Legionnaire Tom Brown (Gary Cooper). Amy invites Tom to go to her apartment after the show but their encounter does not work very well. Tom leaves her apartment and Amy follows him. Meanwhile Madame Caesar stalks Tom on the street but he returns with Amy to her apartment. However two thieves attack him and he self-defends and kills the guys. Tom is arrested and Adjutant Caesar unsuccessfully tries to force him to confess that he had met his wife. Monsieur La Bessiere offers to help Tom but he is assigned to a suicide mission with the Foreign Legion. La Bessiere proposes marriage to Amy, but she is divided between her true love with Tom and the comfortable life she might have with the millionaire.

"Morocco" is the first film of Marlene Dietrich in America with a strange triangle of love among a cabaret singer, a legionnaire and a millionaire. The romance has a daring scene for a 1930 film, when Marlene Dietrich kisses Eve Southern on the lips and a magnificent conclusion, unusual in Hollywood movies. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Marrocos" ("Morocco")