Blonde Venus (1932)

I cringed, I cried like I was chopping a great big sweet vadalia and gosh darn it, if I didn't enjoy myself thoroughly. That's my one sentence, Gene Shallit-zed review of Blonde Venus.

This is one of many early Cary Grant films that I watched mainly for Cary and more or less forgot about. Grant has a smallish part as Nick Townsend the millionaire playboy who gets entangled with married showgirl Helen "Jones" Faraday (Marlene Dietrich.)

The next time I watched the movie, I was keeping an eye out for Herbert Marshall plays Dietrich's husband, a chemist, who is dying of radium poisoning. He needs $1,500 for the cure. His wife goes back to work on the stage, but decides she can make the money more quickly by shacking up with Nick Townsend. While her husband is in Germany being cured, she and Townsend have a long fling that includes some speedboat riding--one of Hollywood's favorite visual codes to represent free love.

It's clear that Dietrich has feelings for Townsend but decides to return to her husband. Unfortunately, he gets cured a few days early and comes home to an empty apartment and the unopened telegram, explaining his early return. Not exactly overwhelmed with gratitude when he finds out just how his wife raised the money to save his life, he threatens to divorce her and take custody of their son, Johnny. Dietrich kidnaps Johnny, played by professional toe-head Dickie Moore, and spends the next two reels hiding from her husband and the various private detectives he hires. When poverty, starvation and exhaustion catch up with her, she reluctantly returns the boy to his father. Dietrich is devastating here, looking every inch the hungry bag lady with torn clothes and hollow cheeks. You can see she's sacrificed for her kid who is returned to daddy looking a bit disheveled but the picture of ruddy health. Audiences were used to seeing Dietrich as the vamp, but here she plays a devoted wife and mother, albeit with her own peculiar spin on the institution. Of course, director Joseph Von Sternberg would never let her look dowdy and for my money Dietrich is never sexier than she is riding in a hay wagon with Johny singing him a German lullaby.

Speaking of lullabies, what makes Blonde Venus rise above the typical melodrama, are the three numbers Dietrich performs: I Couldn't Be Annoyed in her trademark tuxedo, the charmingly unintelligible You So and So and Hot Voodoo, a production number that you have to see to believe. When I saw Blonde Venus in a theater about a decade ago, this scene drew audible gasps from the audience. Dietrich arrives on stage in a fairly realistic gorilla costume with a back up chorus of black dancers in "native African" (in a 1930s nightclubby kind of way) costume. She pulls off the gorilla head to reveal a blond afro wig with rhinestone studded arrows poking out. Can you say "racially insensitive" boys and girls? But dang if it ain't also highly entertaining.

After the music, the thing I appreciated most was the complex nature of this love triangle. Dietrich is torn between two men, both of whom she cares for; and two lifestyles, both of which have attraction. There are no villains or heroes here. I won't go so far as to say it's realistic. Remember the radium poisoning, the gorilla suits and the speed boat. It's just that the decision to return to her husband isn't as pat and pre-figured as it would be if it were made a few years later.

Blonde Venus humanizes Dietrich's image one minute and immortalizes it the next with plenty of lavish costumes and Sternberg-ian lighting set-ups. Dietrich is an icon today in part because her irony and her androgynous and sophisticated sexuality still resonate with modern audiences. She has a unique style of singing, talking, even walking that is undeniably fascinating. And yet, I don't think she would be as popular today if she had not proven time and time again that she really could act. Blonde Venus is some of her strongest work. Though I watched it for her co-stars, they are little more than arm candy. It is Dietrich who owns the film and captures every second of the audience's attention.

Angel (1937)

Angel was the first film Ernst Lubitsch directed under the production code. And it shows. You can see Lubitsch struggling against the Code. His usual "touch," that light unobtrusive slyly sexual humor that his best movies exhibit, is a bit off somehow. To add to Angel's troubles, the film was cut down by twenty minutes to please the studio. That also shows. There are chunks of explanatory dialog missing. I was confused about the opening scene of the film, expecting it to be explained in the end and it simply wasn't. Worse, you can see moments where Lubitsch had given the actors space to actually react to things and those are pared down in the most noticeable way. In one scene Herbert Marshall comes to realize that his wife is the woman, "Angel" that his buddy Melvyn Douglas has been nattering on about for two reels. The film fades to black right in the middle of Marshall's reaction. His face is still changing. It's most disconcerting and I can only blame Paramount for this incompetence because I can't see a genius like Lubitsch actually pulling such a hack move.

Dietrich plays Maria Barker, wife of an important British diplomat, Sir Frederick Barker (Herbert Marshall) whose time is consumed by attempting to make peace in the Pre-World War II era. Through a slight case of mistaken identity she meets Tony Halton (Melvyn Douglas) in the Grand Duchess' Salon, which is far as I can tell is a cross between a single's bar and a brothel. The Grand Duchess, ably portrayed by Laura Hope Crewes is part time agony aunt to Maria with whom she has some mysterious, never quite explained connection. Halton shows up on the recommendation of a never-seen Captain Butler (remember this is two years BEFORE Gone With The Wind, I think the name was merely coincidence) looking for a good time. Maria offers to show him the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, though that's not what he had in mind. Those reading along might think some of this sounds remarkably similar to Ninotchka, made by Lubitsch also with Douglas and a fake Russian Emigre, Greta Garbo a few years later. But Angel is no Ninotchka and it's a bit of a puzzle as to why. Dietrich and Douglas' early scenes together, so critical to the believability of the rest of the film, are leaden where they should be light and ponderous when they should be breezy. I like both these actors separately, but together in these early scenes, I can't wait for the movie to well, move along.

I literally said aloud, "oh thank God!" when I saw Edward Everett Horton's face in the next scenes. Now, we are actually going to have a comedy, I said. Well, almost. Horton has a small part that he does his best with as Graham, Barker's loyal manservant who judges the various European powers by the manners of their representatives at the League of Nations. He holds them all up to be lacking compared to those of his master, Sir Frederick who is smooth, easy-going and impecable in every way a butler could wish for. Unfortunately he's not so impeccable in every way a wife could wish for. After a wonderful bit of Lubitsch nonsense involving mixed up sleeping arrangements in the bedroom suite (the highlight of the movie for me), we see that Maria and Frederick's relationship is more or less platonic. I love Herbert Marshall and all, but really man, do you need a B12 shot or something? Can I get you a plate of oysters? This is Marlene Dietrich telling you about a dream she had in which you beat her and she quite liked it (Oh Lubitsch and his references to S&M are one of my favorite little quirks) and you run off to answer a telegram from the Yugoslavians. Sigh.

At a scene quite reminiscent of Notorious, Maria spots Halton at races through a pair of binoculars and begs to go home with a headache. Speaking of Hitchcock, the whole pre-World War II vibe is very Foriegn Correspondent-ish, right down to the fact that Maria and Sir Frederick have the exact same enormous Great Dane as Marhsall's character does in the later Hitchcock film. Wierd. Anywho, inevitably Halton and Sir Frederick meet, discover they once shared the affections of the same Parisian woman during the Great War and become fast friends. When Douglas and Dietrich are reunited, the sparks finally fly and both actors are really wonderful at showing just enough emotion to let the audience know what they are thinking. The way Douglas says "Hello, Angel" when they are finally alone together is enough to make me almost root for him. And that's saying a lot because y'all know I'm bananas for Herbie. Marshall and Douglas seem to enjoy being with each other more than they do Dietrich, which makes me wonder if Lubtisch wasn't just trying to remake Design for Living with the promise of "no sex" actually coming true. Marshall and Douglas' scenes together all slap you on the back old man, make you a gin and tonic and light your cigarette. I could just about watch 90 minutes of this camaraderie, but if it Lubitsch had allowed it to go on a second longer I would be convinced that it was the two guys who were lovers after all.

I wouldn't discount any Ernest Lubitsch film entirely. Though it's been difficult to find in the U.S. , some kind soul has uploaded it to Youtube. It is worth watching to appreciate the enormous tension wrought by Lubitsch in this comedy that wants to be a thriller. It wants to be Notorious. How I ache for Marshall to come out at the end and admit he's a fat-headed guy full of pain. Actually, almost any movie would be better with that as the ending. Dietrich keeps hinting that she could be a spy when she first meets Douglas. I kept hoping that would be the case. Her marriage would be revealed as a sham so she could run off with Halton. Graham and Sir Frederick could live happily ever after in a Jeeves and Wooster rip-off drawing room comedy.

Knight without Armor (in a savage land!)

This fun Marlene Dietrich/Robert Donat melodrama has all hallmarks of a great movie about the Russian Revolution: action, romance, dancing Tartars and wacky hats. Robert Donat plays a British journalist who, after being threatened with deportation from Russia, decides to assume a false identity and spy on revolutionaries. His cover is so good that when he gets caught and sent to Siberia by the Czarist regime, no one ever finds out he's a Brit. He manages to switch sides at will in the conflict to suit his purposes, which mainly involve cozying up to an imprisoned countess (Dietrich). Charged with delivering her to her probable execution, he decides to help her escape instead. This makes for a pleasant cross-country romantic adventure story that's not dissimilar from The Thirty-Nine Steps when you get down to it.

Perhaps because it's an English film, it feels quite a bit racier than typical American fare of the period (1937). Dietrich has no less than two gratuitous bathing scenes and she and Donat spend their time unchaperoned and unconcerned with sleeping arrangements. In one scene Donat tells her "They'll call off the search now. In a few days we can leave the forest." Dietrich inquires in her smokiest, most suggestive baritone "Don't you like my forest?" to which Donat replies, "I adore it" and they kiss, while the scene fades out. When next we see Dietrich she is skinny dipping, a scene reminiscent of the pre-code Blonde Venus (1932).

Though it was filmed in England and lacks that David Lean sweep of landscape that would make Doctor Zhivago an immortal classic, Knight Without Armor still manages to capture some of the insanity of that period of history. In a tense sequence Donat and Dietrich wait for a train that isn't coming, even though the station master insists on mustering passengers to the platform despite the obvious non-presence of the train. The longer they wait the more danger they face from Donat's own underlings who've decided to kidnap the Countess for themselves. There is a creeping irrationality to the peasants who are all mostly out for themselves and the good time to be had. The film presents no heroes or villains on either side, only individuals who are either sympathetic to the cause of the lovers or they are not. I suppose you could argue that this focus on the individual over the collective whole would be a way of taking sides after all.

At one point they encounter a young officer (John Clements) of the revolution who is so taken by the Countess' beauty that he deliberately allows them to escape, creating a diversion by killing himself. This conveniently allows the leads to have to avoid that big sacrifice that I was expecting from them, this being a 1930s melodrama. It also makes for some interesting dynamics between Donat and Dietrich. Donat uses the cover story that he and the Countess are brother and sister, so he has to sit by and watch while this young officer flatters and makes love to his girl. Donat applies his usual mask of indifference, appearing to trust Dietrich to prevent the fellow from going too far. In a beautifully filmed night scene, Dietrich reaches her arm out to Donat in the train car and he kisses it passionately, silently, all while the young officer looks on jealously. Yet, the young man never confronts the couple, preferring to push his advantage as far as he can, until he realizes that she will never love him. All of this is accomplished with minimal dialog and great skill from every quarter.

Certainly Knight Without Armor isn't a great film. Though Belgian director Jacques Feyder's other films are well-respected, this one is largely forgotten and I think it's partly his fault. The flow of the movie is a bit choppy and even occasionally hard to follow. There are scenes obviously left out (Dietrich's marriage and the death of her husband) and it isn't simply a case of a director deciding the audience is smart enough to fill in the blanks. It really seems as if he's not quite in control of the material or the pacing. Despite this criticism, I like the way he treats Dietrich as an actress rather than an object. He still manages to get her "little butterfly" in view in a few close-ups, but spends more care in setting up the drama the lighting. Take this clip which shows the moment when the Countess realizes that she is on the losing side in the revolution. Notice the time and elaborate set-up involved in building the drama of this scene. When Dietrich realizes that her servants have joined the rabble who've over run the estate, she is framed in a classic glamour close-up. She steels herself, asks "what are you waiting for?" and marches forward to face them. The crowd of rabble advances and an elderly woman from the crowd shouts, "c'mon she's only a woman!" The wit here is subtle, with Dietrich's power as a film star and her potency as a femme fatale being pitted against an angry mob.

There's a nice story attached to the making of this film, that stuck with me as I was watching it. Apparently during production Donat became ill and the film's producers wanted to replace him. Dietrich refused, saying that no other actor could play the part so well. She got her way and production was stalled till Donat could return. Perhaps all this really says is that Alexander Korda was more of a push over than Dietrich's usual Hollywood bosses. But it is nice to think of a little bit of chivalry involved in Knight without Armor, even if it is on the part of the damsel in distress.

Touch of Evil: If only Janet had access to Hotwire

It's hard to watch Janet Leigh given her most famous role in Pyscho, in Touch of Evil, as she blunders her way through one dangerous situation after another to arrive at a lot of bad motels. True to form for her career, no good comes to her in a motel. In the early scenes in Mexico, where she is supposed to be on her honeymoon with Charleton Heston she witnesses a horrifying car bomb and is almost kidnapped from the lobby of her hotel. Next she is the victim of a creepy peeping tom before being driven out to the middle of nowhere to a very Batesian looking motel where she is nearly gang-raped and forced to over-dose. She is then taken unconcious to another hotel that is also possibly a brothel where he is left alone with a murder victim. I can't help but think that if she had access to Hotwire or some other modern day guide to accomodation she could have avoided a lot of problems. I can just see a review for the hotel in the desert: 1/2 star, inconvenient to public transportation, staff is made up of criminal underworld, no clean towels, noisy (there was some kind of sock hop/drug party/orgy in room next door), security is poor as adjoining door to room was easily forced and the telephones never work. On the plus side, the ice machine seemed well stocked, though I didn't have occasion to use it as I was busy over-dosing on heroin.

The biggest source of suspense in the movie is Heston's lack of attention to his new bride who seems so obviously vulnerable wherever she goes. He is off to investigate the car bomb, and gets entangled with an American sheriff (Orson Welles) who is determined to pin the crime on a local gigolo. When Heston decides to oppose the Sheriff, Welles feels no guilt about going after his wife. As film noir, I think that Touch of Evil is in the Pantheon because of its dark, surreal mood and Welles performance but as with many films in this genre, I wish it were more grounded in common sense. Heston's character is so wrapped up in his work that even when it becomes clear that he's in over his head and that he may loose his new bride, he keeps poking the angry wasps nest that is this crooked litle fifedom. Perhaps it is a chink in my film buff armor to admit that most film noir leaves me pretty cold and usually confused. There are some exceptions of course such as Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Killers and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Touch of Evil certainly is visually arresting and it is easier to follow than many entries in the genre, but in the end I just didn't love it.

Welles performance is certainly stylish and Marlene Dietrich has a nice cameo as an aging prostitute who has a nostalgic friendship with the Sheriff. One of the more interesting aspects of the plot is the way in which the film blurs the line between Mexico and California. You never really know which part of the action takes place in which country and that is part of the wonderful irony. Our American sense of superiority would teach us that the crooked cop is bound to be Mexican and the honest cop American, but that is just the opposite case here. Yet, as a villian, Welles' character is weirdly charming . At any rate he's a nice contrast to the tiresomely upright Heston (Can you tell I'm not a fan?) and I could imagine that it wouldn't have taken more than one or two changes to the script to switch the roles of hero and villian. Had this movie been made in the 70s, I think that's the way it would have gone down.

Perhaps I should set a goal for myself to watch more film noir in hopes of eventually "getting" what everyone always seems to love in this genre. I'd certainly be willing to take suggestions in the comments area for titles with which to start.

Eye Candy of the Day: Destry Rides Again

Stewart and Dietrich in Destry Rides Again (1939). the pair were rumored to have had an affair during the making of this unforgettable Western. Image from Simply Classics.

Destry is a lively, well-acted western that is probably best remembered for the big cat fight scene between Dietrich and Una Merkel. Dietrich and Stewart have amazing chemistry together and one or two trashy Hollywood biographies have them hooking up for a doomed love affair that supposedly left Dietrich pregnant and heartbroken. Whatever the case, the film benefits from the sparks that fly whenever they are on screen.

Dietrich I've always felt was under-rated as actress because she has been so terribly over-rated as a style icon. Just because her looks foretold menswear-inspired fashion, Madonna, punk and post-punk doesn't mean she couldn't throw down when she needed to. Destry is one of her best performances: she sings, she cracks jokes, she kicks ass and she breaks hearts.

Jimmy Stewart has many great performances to his credit, but Destry has always been up there with Philly Story and Mr. Smith in my book. He plays a Sheriff in a crooked town who manages to clean up the stereotypical mob of bad guys mostly without guns. Stewart goes through the movie, with a bemused, laconic attitude. It's almost as if Dietrich's famously ironic tone wore off on him and he added it to his all-american bag of tricks.

Where would Courtney Love be without Destry Rides Again?

Director George Marshall made a lot of westerns, (including the 1955 remake called Destry) but Destry Rides Again doesn't feel like a typical turn in the genre. First of all, the solution to the town of Bottleneck's problems is that all the women band together to fight beside their men. Westerns are usually about the individual, they almost always champion a lone wolf who rides into town and vanguishes the bad guys only to disappear again. Destry is really the oppoosite of that. There is a bit of High Noon here, without the preachiness--the idea that people are collectively resposible for law and order and that evil can only thrive in an atmosphere of fear that Destry manages to mostly dispel with cleverness and humor. My big beef with Destry is the ending of course. It bugs me every time I watch it because Tom seems to forget Frenchy almost immediately. Other than the ending, I'd say it's a darn near perfect movie, so entertaining that for years I labored under the delusion that Howard hawks directed it.