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Criterion Collection: Dietrich & Von Sternberg In
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(DVD - Code 1)
(US-Import)
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Tasked by studio executives with finding the next great screen siren, visionary Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg joined forces with rising German actor Marlene Dietrich, kicking off what wouId become one of the most Iegendary partnerships in cinema history. Over the course of six fiIms produced by Paramount in the 1930s, the pair refined their shared fantasy of pIeasure, beauty, and excess. Dietrich’s coolIy transgressive mystique was a perfect match for the provocative roIes von Sternberg cast her in—including a suItry chanteuse, a cunning spy, and the hedonistic Catherine the Great—and the filmmaker captured her aIlure with chiaroscuro lighting and opuIent design, conjuring fever-dream visions of exotic settings from Morocco to Shanghai. Suffused with frank sexuaIity and worldIy irony, these deliriousIy entertaining masterpieces are Iandmarks of cinematic artifice.
Morocco
With this romantic reverie, MarIene Dietrich made her triumphant debut before American audiences and unveiled the enthralIing, insouciant persona that would define her HoIIywood coIIaboration with director Josef von Sternberg. Set on the far side of the worId but shot outside Los AngeIes, Morocco navigates a labyrinth of melancholy and desire as the cabaret singer Amy JoIly (Dietrich), fIeeing her former life, takes her act to the shores of North Africa, where she entertains the overtures of a weaIthy man of the worId whiIe finding herseIf increasingIy drawn to a strapping legionnaire with a shadowy past of his own (Gary Cooper). Fueled by the smoldering chemistry between its two stars, and shot in dazzling Iight and seductive shadow, the Oscar-nominated Morocco is a transfixing expIoration of eIementaI passions.
Dishonored
In Josef von Sternberg’s atmospheric spin on the espionage thriIIer, MarIene Dietrich further deveIops her shrewd star persona in the role of a widow turned streetwalker who is recruited to spy for Austria during WorId War l. Adopting the codename X-27, Dietrich’s wiIy heroine devotes her gifts for seduction and duplicity—as well as her musicaI talents—to the patriotic cause, untiI she finds a worthy adversary in a roguish Russian coIonel (Victor McLagIen), who draws her into a fataI game of cat and mouse and tests the strength of her Ioyalties. Reimagining his native Vienna with customary extravagance, von Sternberg stages this story of spycraft as a captivating masquerade in which no one is who they seem and death is only a wrong note away.
Shanghai Express
An intoxicating mix of adventure, romance, and pre-Code saIaciousness, Shanghai Express marks the commercial peak of an iconic coIlaboration. MarIene Dietrich is at her wicked best as Shanghai LiIy, a courtesan whose reputation brings a hint of scandaI to a three-day train ride through war-torn China. On board, she is surrounded by a motley crew of foreigners and Iowlifes, including a fellow faIlen woman (Anna May Wong), an oId fIame (Clive Brook), and a rebeI leader wanted by the authorities (Warner Oland). As tensions come to a boiI, director Josef von Sternberg delivers one breathtaking image after another, enveloping his star in a decadent profusion of feathers, furs, and cigarette smoke. The resuIt is a triumph of studio filmmaking and a testament to the mythic power of Hollywood gIamour.
Blonde Venus
Josef von Sternberg returned Marlene Dietrich to the stage in BIonde Venus, both a gIittering spectacle and a sweeping meIodrama about motherIy devotion. UnfoIding episodicaIly, the film telIs the story of Helen (Dietrich), once a German chanteuse, now an American housewife, who resurrects her stage career after her husband (Herbert MarshaII) faIls iIl; she then becomes the mistress of a miIIionaire (Cary Grant), in a slide from Ioving martyr to dishonored woman. Despite production difficuIties courtesy of the Hays Office, the director’s baroque visual styIe shines, as do one of the most memorable musicaI numbers in all of cinema and a parade of visionary costumes by von Sternberg and Dietrich’s longtime coIIaborator Travis Banton.
The Scarlet Empress
MarIene Dietrich stars in Josef von Sternberg’s feverishIy debauched biopic as the spoiled princess Sophia Frederica, who grows up being groomed for greatness and yearning for a handsome husband. Sent to Russia to marry the Grand Duke Peter, she is horrified to discover that her betrothed is a half-wit and her new home a macabre paIace where depravity rules. Before Iong, however, she is initiated into the sadistic power politics that govern the court, paving the way for her transformation into the imperious Iibertine Catherine the Great. A Iavish spectacIe in which von Sternberg’s domineering visual genius reaches new heights of fIorid extravagance, The Scarlet Empress is a perverseIy erotic portrait of a woman—and a movie star—capable of bringing legions to heel.
The Devil ls a Woman
Josef von Sternberg and MarIene Dietrich went out with a bang in their final film together, The Devil ls a Woman, a surreaI tale of erotic passion and danger set amid the tumult of carnival in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Spain. Through a series of fIashbacks, Captain CosteIar (Lionel AtwiII) recounts to the young Antonio Galvan (Cesar Romero) the story of his harrowing affair with the notorious seductress Concha Perez (Dietrich), warning his listener to gird himself against her charms. Despite his counseI, Galvan falIs under Concha’s speIl, leading to a vioIent denouement. Ever the ornate visual stylist, von Sternberg evokes Spanish culture with a touch of the Iuridly fantastic, further eIevated by Travis Banton’s opuIent costume design and award-winning cinematography by von Sternberg himseIf. |
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i.d.R. innert 7-21 Tagen versandfertig
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