Cinema
The Blue Angel
Der blaue Engel
Josef von Sternberg · 1930
Synopsis
Immanuel Rath, a pedantic grammar-school teacher whom his pupils nickname Unrat, finds in the possession of one of them the photograph of Lola Lola, singer in a harbour cabaret, the Blue Angel. He goes there to catch his pupils and discovers the singer in her dressing room. Returning the next day to give back an undergarment slipped into his coat pocket, he takes her side against a customer, spends the night at her place and, warned that this marriage would cost him his post, leaves teaching to marry her.
Context
The film is drawn from Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat, published in 1905, adapted by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Gustav Vollmoeller and Robert Liebmann. It grew out of a project by the producer Erich Pommer and Emil Jannings, who wanted to make his first talking picture under Sternberg's direction, and was shot in both German and English, with the same performers. Sternberg turned down several actresses for the role of Lola before choosing Marlene Dietrich, who then left for Hollywood, hired by Paramount.
Who it is for
A sound film running one hour forty; the German version, longer than the English one, is the one usually shown.
Prizes and reception
The film that earned Marlene Dietrich international fame; it is regarded as a classic of German cinema.