Blonde Venus

Marlene Dietrich is still stunning, Sternberg knows how to make each frame meaningful, but this plot blows. blooooooooows.

Strange subject matter for Dietrich/von Sternberg is still fascinating to behold, though the plot doesn't really make much sense (especially Dietrich's inexplicable involvement and fascination with foppish Grant). Tries to be an almost inverse retread of BLUE ANGEL, but Dietrich never feels at home in the early domestic scenes. Exceptionally well-crafted, with some surprisingly frank nudity featured under the opening titles!

While some of the decisions that the main character makes can be a bit baffling, Marlene Dietrich's character has enough depth to not come out as cold-hearted as she might want to make herself appear. The male characters are boring in comparison and while the conclusion to the movie feels a little bit unexplained and I guess, easy, it's still a movie with a lot of charm to it. And a gorilla outfit. With Dietrich in it.

Sort of interesting in that this is the Sternberg/Dietrich movie with the least amount of intrigue and visual exoticism, as well as the only one where she plays a character who is conventionally weak in many ways. But it's sort of beautiful and compelling just the same, a sort of off-kilter social drama about a wayward life during the Depression, made even more exciting by Dietrich's well-rounded performance.

The story is great, the direction solid, and Marlene Dietrich is captivating but it was the complete WTF ending that really got to me. I mean what happens next...

This domestic drama doesn't necessarily play to the director's strengths, who tends to excel in more 'exotic' settings, and the plot is hardly riveting despite being an early film to address the mother-whore complex and its implications for women's lives, but there are some good scenes and Dietrich is more sympathetic than usual in a somewhat atypical role. Its biggest problems are the lack of memorable imagery and its overly serious tone.

Interesting story I suppose, but it doesn't take much of Dietrich before I've had enough.

Beautiful film, though I'm not sure I'm completely up on the ending.

Delightfully surreal pre-code film by von Sternberg. Dietrich's performance is great, and it brings me an even greater appreciation for Batman & Robin.

In the 1932 Dietrich's stony demeanor may have been seen as alluring, but today it comes across as poor acting. Film definitely shows its age.

Sternberg and Dietrich sensitively depicted women who might otherwise be labeled villains or femmes fatale. Here she is caught between dueling personas: two earnest lovers, either hemmed in domesticity or masking sorrow beneath cabaret sex iconography, reviled by society who deems her motherly devotion unhealthy for the child. She literally wishes she could "be someone else," and at last is allowed her own choice, even if one gets a feeling the safe bet was sentenced by the gavel of censorship.

The plot in this film is very thin so unless you have an interest in pre-code films or Marlene Dietrich this is a film you could easily pass up on.

I wish Marlene Dietrich was my mom, huskily singing me German lullabies

Unfairly maligned, I actually think this is among the most complex and developed of von Sternberg's sound melodramas. The movie makes use of more complicated relationships to touch on motherhood, show business, and class in deeper ways. Each of the characters are morally rich, as well, which makes it far more relatable than von Sternberg's flatter work. There are many pacing and character issues, but overall, its a charmer, and quite thematically advanced for Hollywood's early sound era.

"Please walk, mummy" was the emotional high point. While we get Dietrich doing her stage thing singing in semi-provocative dresses like a white tux and even walking around in a monkey costume, it's rather strange seeing her in a rather poor domestic situation. The story is of the slow kind and not so dramatic. Yet, it's so simplistically charming about the mother and son relationship with Dickie Moore doing real well as the kid and brings some key moments that win the movie over.