The Blue Angel
1930
This Josef Von Sternberg film, based on Heinrich Mann's novel PROFESSOR UNRAT, made Marlene Dietrich a celebrity and began a tumultuous relationship between star and director that spanned Sternberg's most creative period. The film features Emil Jannings as Dr. Immanuel Rath, a provincial prep school teacher who becomes incensed .. Read more
| Starring | Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Hans Albers |
|---|---|
| Director | Josef Von Sternberg |
| Genres | Drama |
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The Blue Angel
This Josef Von Sternberg film, based on Heinrich Mann's novel PROFESSOR UNRAT, made Marlene Dietrich a celebrity and began a tumultuous relationship between star and director that spanned Sternberg's most creative period. The film features Emil Jannings as Dr. Immanuel Rath, a provincial prep school teacher who becomes incensed when he learns his boys have become infatuated with Lola Lola (Dietrich), a cabaret singer. Heading to the Blue Angel, a nightclub, to catch his pupils, Rath instead becomes bewitched by the sensuous Lola himself, beginning an obsession that drives him to the depths of despair. Visionary, haunting, and emotionally unrelenting, THE BLUE ANGEL stands as Sternberg's crowning achievement. Filmed in both German and English simultaneously, the German version is generally considered superior to its English language counterpart.
| Starring | Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron, Hans Albers |
|---|---|
| Director | Josef Von Sternberg |
| Studio | EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 3 hrs 20 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English, German |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 23 Sep 2002 Production year: 1930 |
| Format | DVD |
The Blue Angel (2 discs) (1930)
Or you can rent each disc individually:
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Critics' reviews (3)
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A seriously misguided attempt by 20th Century-Fox to remake Josef von Sternberg's 1930 German classic, about a cabaret singer who destroys the middle-aged professor obsessionally in love with her. Placed in a modern setting and filmed in CinemaScope, this truly awful piece somehow loses all the atmosphere, resonance and credibility of the original. Curt Jurgens and May Britt are the unfortunate substitutes for Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich. Edward Dmytryk directs.
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A masterwork of late twenties German grotesquerie, and after a slowish beginning an emotional powerhouse, set in a dark nightmare world which could be created only in the studio. Shot also in English, it was highly popular and influential in Britain and A
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Most helpful member's review
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12 out of 12 people found this review helpful
Ze Drunken Angel
This is an historic film that launched the career of Marlene Dietrich. It became her trademark and her performance in this movie has been imitated by Liza Minelli in ?Cabaret?, Madeleine Kahn in ?Blazing Saddles? and a host of lesser knowns particularly female impersonators.
The story concerns a teacher of English (played extremely ponderously by Emil Jannings) who has great difficulty in making his curiously mature students say 'the' instead of 'ze'. From one of them he confiscates a postcard of a night club performer, Lola Lola, and so invades the club in order to try and capture his mischievous students. Here he meets and falls in love with Lola Lola (Dietrich). She is a rather sexually ambiguous woman, gorgeous face and body but seemingly unattracted to the men who fall under her spell. Because of her he gets sacked from his job but still he marries her and starts travelling with the show. After 5 years he has become a drunk, an oafish, humiliated stooge to a fat magician whilst Dietrich quite openly dallies with other men. His downfall is complete when the show returns to his old town.
Today it seems a rather clunky affair. It was made right at the beginning of the sound era when the difficulties of recording simultaneous sound and motion fixed cameras to the floor, no tracking shots, pans, zooms, hardly any of the free flowing cinematography to which we are accustomed today. In addition the crude sound makes Dietrich?s voice very harsh especially when singing, more like a band saw than a femme fatale. All this means that you have to use a lot of imagination to compensate when watching this film.
WARNING. To broaden the film?s international appeal it was made in two languages, German and English. Many of the lesser actors could not speak English and their parts are still in German. Jannings and Dietrich were fluent but some of the other actors? accents are so thick it is really hard to understand them. So unless you are pathologically averse to reading whilst viewing make sure you get the German version. -
Most recent members' review
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Fantastic
This is a really excellent film. The photography is superb, giving the film a really dark, claustrophobic atmosphere. I loves the short sequences when the Professor is walking about the streets. This must have been one of the first talkies, and it's interesting to note that the acting styles of some of the actors still resemble the styles that the silent films in which they were accustomed to starring in demanded. Well worth a watch, and, as a previous reviewer suggested, rent the German version - not the English version.
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This Josef Von Sternberg film, based on Heinrich Mann's novel PROFESSOR UNRAT, made Marlene Dietrich a celebrity and began a tumultuous relationship between star and director that spanned Sternberg's ... -