Other Titles • The Blue Angel • Der Blaue Engel (1930)
Synopses for The Blue Angel (1930)
1.
For director Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich it all began with The Blue Angel, one of the masterpieces of Germany's Weimar cinema. This landmark film thrust the sultry and unrestrained Dietrich on an unsuspecting international film audience. She plays the prototypical role of Lola, the singer who tempts repressed professor Emil Jannings (the king of expressionist actors) into complete submission night after night at the Blue Angel nightclub. The film perfectly captures the masochism and degradation of the Weimar Republic, just before the rise of Adolf Hitler. And yet the moral confusion exhibited by Jannings is really due to his own torment. Dietrich is merely an instrument of his innermost desires, standing on stage in top hat, stockings, and bare thighs singing "Falling in Love Again." --Bill Desowitz
2.
This Josef Von Sternberg film, based on Heinrich Mann's novel PROFESSOR UNRAT, made Marlene Dietrich a star and began a tumultuous relationship between star and director that spanned Sternberg's most creative period. The film stars 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, this is the German version, which is considered superior to its English language counterpart.
3.
Double Feature: "Der Blaue Engel" (106min. German version with English subtitles) - Professor Rath is a sexually repressed instructor of a boys' prep school. After learning of the pupils' infatuation with French postcards depicting a local nightclub songstress, he decides to personally investigate the source of such indecency. But as soon as he enters the shadowy Blue Angel nightclub and steals one glimpse of the smouldering Lola-Lola commanding the stage in a top hat, stockings and bare thighs, Rath's self-righteous piety is crushed. He finds himself fatefully seduced by the throaty voice of the vulgar siren. Consumed by desire and tormented by his rigid propriety, Professor Rath allows himself to be dragged down a path of personal degredation. Also includes "The Blue Angel" (94min. English language version).
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