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The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Josef von Sternberg and his then-paramour Ms. Dietrich's one-two punch in 1930, released before MOROCCO, the very first Hollywood star vehicle for her, coupled with a gorgeous Cary Grant. THE BLUE ANGEL was shot simultaneously in both German and English, actually it is the very first German full-talkie feature and the first sound picture for the German thespian Emil Jannings, who was quite sought-after in the wake of becoming the first recipient of Oscar's BEST ACTOR honor in 1929. While talkie is still in its incipient years, von Sternberg account-ably fillets the source novel to keep the central story concise: a middle-aged professor of local gymnasium, Immanuel Rath (Jannings), whose well-maintained scholar life starts to come undone when he is hopelessly swept off his feet by a cabaret performer Lola Lola (Dietrich, a star was born at the age of 29, a sublime rarity in the ageist Hollywood) and marries her. Professor Rath is not a particularly beloved character, a bachelor lives in a tiny gymnasial apartment, often mocked by his pupils as Professor Rubbish, but as an educator, he holds absolute sway in his class, he can impudently blow his nose in front of his students with no one dare to mutter a word. As staid and prudish as he is, his sortie to the infamous titular club inadvertently plies him with the wanting respect from his peers, he is granted with a reserved balcony seat from the magician Kiepert (Gerron), the head of the itinerant troupe, and Lola Lola, that seductive chanteuse, with all her sexualized paraphernalia (stockings, millinery, and bared-skin), he cottons to her prima facie, so much so that, moral yardstick and social rectitude simply evaporate when being contextualized under that sultry spell. To Lola, Immanuel is definitely not her first suitor - but she obliges his in-earnest affection which is garnished with a tad goofiness - and wouldn't be her last, out of her line of business, and more saliently, out of her nature, flings and smooches are congenital to her like the air she breathes, that is nothing to do with love, Lola Lola is a modernized vixen, but she has no scruples of who she is and has no intention to change for anyone else's sake. So the downhill of Prof. Rath is rather plain in sight, he is shorn of his erstwhile respected vocation and assumes the role of the lowest rung in the troupe, the clown, in order to cling to his flamboyant wife, and consumed by the gnawing frustration, jealousy and rancor, until a fatal return to the Blue Angel club becomes his undoing. Emil Jannings, at first, seems to be stuck in Professor Rath's bookish carapace with eye-rolling tedium, but strangely carries off the often incoherently designated transformation of his character to a purely riveting acme edging the ending where he doesn't need to speak one single word but a catharsis of poignancy and empathy has been eloquently conveyed through his gesticulation and bearings (with a substantive helping hand from the make-up department), that's what a thespian well-burnished in silent pictures can pull off in an elemental thrust. By comparison, Dietrich's Lola Lola is above all, deployed as a signifier of temptation but conferred with understated nonchalance and flippancy, only that recurring ditty "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)", composed by Friedrich Hollaender, is deathless together with Lola Lola's mold-breaking manifesto of women's screen presentation. Albeit some perceptible hiccups in its audio track, Josef von Sternberg's pioneering black-and- white oldie mostly retains its verve and potency in its Gothic mise-en-scène, emphatic character presentation and visual splendor (Kiepert's magic trick is a primitive hoot), showing up the metamorphic bridge between a full-fledged silent era and the irrevocable prevalence of talkie which would bring sea change to both performers and filmmakers alike.

Seems like director Von Sternberg had an axe to grind with men or the middle class. Emil Janning's Professor is staid and repressed but seems like a decent person and I don't know why he must be seen to lose it so much, if, as the director said, this was not a political allegory. That is either disingenuous or the Professor is not the stable person he seems the first 2/3 of the film. The only other explanation is that Von Sternberg sees Lola (the amazing Marlene Dietrich) as a very destructive person. I found this an overly melodramatic film which makes a cartoonish depiction of a middle-class German. The acting is fantastic from Dietrich and Jannings but I found this a baffling film. I had expected that the Professor would fall in love and they would have a more stable relationship, but their relationship falls apart when the Professor is completely irrational at the attention his wife is getting. While this isn't unreasonable, that he becomes SO unhinged seems really unlikely. I don't understand why his seemingly sweet wife and also someone who seemed deeply in love with him turns away from him so quickly. If Von Sternberg wanted to make that storyline, they should have made the Professor a bit more unlikable. This was really a disappointing film. I hoped for a more nuanced, thoughtful depiction of a man learning to see the beauty in things he had previously looked down on. Von Sternberg makes the Professor a baffling character through which there is no throughline from his character before and after marrying Lola.

They released this film filmed in two versions, they acted all the scenes in both German and English, but when I decided to watch this film from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, I was going to watch the original German language version. Basically Professor Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) is the esteemed college preparatory high school educator who has punished many of his male students for spreading around the image of beautiful stage performer Lola Lola (Destry Rides Again's Marlene Dietrich). He hopes to catch the school boys in the cabaret club The Blue Angel, where she is the headlining act, and after her for himself he grows slowly passionate for her, and with a pair of panties snatched by a student he has a good reason to return there the following night. Having had a night of desire and such, Rath returns to class next day, with the Principal (Eduard Von Winterstein) furious to see the students running riot, and he is aware of the teacher's behaviour recently as well. He decides it is best to retire from the school, and with his newfound freedom he can marry Lola, but they cannot stay happy for long as their money problems grow, and to earn he is forced to become a stage clown in the cabaret troupe. Rath is often filled with jealousy and lust for his wife and her profession, she leaves herself open as a "shared woman", and he is being ridiculed for his past while performing as a clown. He performs his last act at The Blue Angel, and he is shocked to see Lola kissing her new love interest strongman Mazeppa (Hans Albers), and his rage turns into insanity, where he starts strangles his wife and is forced into a straitjacket. In the end, having been released from prison, Rath is not able to resolve his position as a school teacher, and he has obviously lost wife Lola, so he dies from extreme self pity clutching the school desks that once sat his loyal students. Also starring Kurt Gerron as Kiepert the Magician, Rosa Valetti as Guste the Magician's Wife, Reinhold Bernt as The Clown, Hans Roth as Beadle the Caretaker of the Secondary School, Rolf Müller as Pupil Angst and Robert Klein-Lörk as Pupil Goldstaub. Jannings - in his first talking picture - gives a mixed but equally interesting performance as the teacher turned performer with a troubled passion, and Dietrich is wonderful in her iconic top hat and black stockings as the seductive stage performer with a cruel streak, it is a film with some memorable sequences and moments that stand out, especially of course the cabaret stuff, making it a most watchable drama. Very good!

WE CAN WELL recall viewing this film for the very first time on a PBS Friday evening show. This was circa 1971 and we needed to go to such Public Television stations as our own WTTW, Channel 11 in Chicago in order to see many films which weren't shown on commercial TV Statiobs.WELL, HOW THINGS have changed. Just this passed Monday (2 days ago), Turner Classic Movies ran THE BLUE ANGEL in prime-time. It had been about 40 years (yes, count 'em, folks!) since our initial contact with Herr Josef Von Sternberg's dark, tragic drama. We had seen it once or twice during that period, but had never given it my undivided attention.ALTHOUGH IT IS a German language film, there was at least one of these showings was in a recently rediscovered English language version. We also remember a showing which was in German; but featured Miss Dietrich's performance of "Falling In Lov Again" in English.VIEWING A FILM SUCH as this very talky drama, while at the same time being compelled to read Subtutles, in order to follow the story can really prove to be a pain right where one sits. Yet, it does seem to become easier as the story progresses; as we become engrossed with the scenario unfolding, the dark yet starkly penetrating images, moody and highly atmospheric songs & music and the virtuoso acting performances.THE STORY MAY seem somewhat complex; yet it is probably the very universal themes and connection with the lives and needs of all people that make this such a powerful and compelling of a story with such a long life as an all time favourite.IN SHORT, WE have a story of loneliness, the need to love and be loved, the falling from grace of a highly regarded and most straight laced of a member of academia. From perhaps a most distinguished position and and outstanding of a reputation as a Professor of Literature at the unnamed university, the professor (Mr. Emil Jannings) falls in love with a common, vulgar cabaret singer and exponent of sex, Lola Lola (Miss Marlena Dietrich).THE STORY COVERS a period of over five years, in which the middle aged, clearly un-handsome man discovers that he has fallen to such a degree of degradation as to not only being a minor entertainer; but also participating in selling his own wife. During appearances following Lola's doing her song, professor Roth's duties included peddling some rather pornographic type of postcards to the bawdy male patrons of the show.WE MUST CONFESS that even being a grown man, married with two children, there was an awful lot of obvious seedy goings on that I missed on previous viewings. Certainly, there were no examples of explicit on screen sex (such as have become so commonplace); and yet, with all of the occurrences we surely are forced to ask a few questions.IN ADDITION TO the setting of a night club with rather risqué programming, what is it that all of these college boys find so fascinating? Why do the young men hide from the Professor in secret rooms that are below the floors? What is the purpose of these rooms? Why does the proprietor worry about the presence of a police officer; for, isn't this a legal and licensed establishment? Do you think that there is sex for sale here? We do.THE AMAZING FEAT that is accomplished here is making such an interesting story out of such a sordid and low life segment of society.WE GIVE THIS five stars as our rating.