Monthly Archives: May 2013

The Devil Is a Woman
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
1935/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing

Tagline: Kiss me … and I’ll break your heart!

The film opens with a carnival in turn-of-the-century Spain, all the revelers are masked.  Antonio Galvan (Cesar Romero), a fugitive revolutionary, spies the beautiful Concha (Marlene Dietrich) and they make a date for a rendezvous.  Before the appointed time he has a chance meeting with his friend Don Pasquale (Lionel Atwill) and tells him about the mysterious beauty.  Don Pasquale tells him his long, sad history with this duplicitous vixen to warn Antonio away from her.  Alas, Concha’s attractions are too strong for any man to resist …  With Edward Everett Horton hiding behind a beard as the governor of the town.

Although Dietrich said this was her favorite picture, I thought it was pretty bad and did her no favors.  Although she drives multiple men to their ruin, most of the time she acts like a petulant little girl, stamping her foot when she doesn’t get her way.  This is not the aloof Dietrich I love from the earlier films.  Her costumes are also very unflattering as far as I am concerned.  To add to that Lionel Atwill just wasn’t cut out to be a thwarted lover and Edward Everett Horton is wasted in a part that requires him to be an autocratic bully.

The Spanish government threatened to bar all Paramount films from Spain and its territories unless the film was withdrawn from worldwide circulation.  Paramount destroyed the original print after the initial run.  New prints were struck after many years from a print Dietrich kept in a bank vault.

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Werewolf of London
Directed by Stuart Walker
1935/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing

Dr. Yogami: Good day. But remember this Dr. Glendon, the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.

The first mainstream Hollywood werewolf movie is pretty good.  Botanist Dr. Wilfred Glendon (Henry Hull) is searching for a rare flower that blooms only by moonlight in Tibet when he is attacked by a mysterious beast.  He manages to return to England with a specimen  and devotes himself single-mindedly to experimenting with the plant, thereby further estranging his wife (Valerie Hobson).  The mysterious Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) visits Wilfred and tells him that the flower is the only cure for werewolfery and that there are two werewolves in London.  Sure enough, on the first night of the full moon, Wilfred begins to grow hairy palms and discovers that both of his Tibetan flower blossoms have been stolen from his laboratory …

The Wolf Man has never been my favorite Universal monster, largely because of Lon Chaney, Jr’s curious miscasting as an English lord’s son.  Henry Hull is much more convincing, as the tormented half-beast.  The make-up and transformations, however, are far less impressive than in the 1941 film.

Re-release trailer

Crime and Punishment
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
1935/USA
B.P. Schulberg Productions for Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing

“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into his mind “for every man must have somewhere to turn…” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

I loved this film, a loose adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novel.  Raskolnikov (Peter Lorre) graduates with highest honors from university and makes his mother and sister proud.  He goes on to write scholarly articles on criminology.  He has a sort of Nietzschean theory that ordinary standards cannot be applied to extraordinary men.  His articles don’t pay much, however, and he is living in desperate poverty.  He goes to a grasping, insulting old pawnbroker to pawn his father’s watch to pay the rent and while there meets a sweet, devout prostitute named Sonya (Marian Marsh).

When he discovers that his sister has lost her position and feels forced to marry a horrible beaurocrat to support herself and their mother, he snaps and murders the pawnbroker for her money.  The rest of the story follows the psychological aftermath of the crime on Raskolnikov,  the relentless investigation of the murder by Inspector Porfiry (Edward Arnold), and the redemptive love of Sonya.

According to the commentary track on Mad Love, Peter Lorre agreed to star in that film in exchange for a guarantee that he could make this one.  I am glad it worked out because he is simply fantastic in it.  It is great to see him exercise a full range of emotion in a complex leading role.  My favorite parts were immediately after the crime when the character decided that he no longer feared anything.  I laughed out loud several times at the way Lorre delivered the many zingers.  He is also pathetic, tender, and hysterical as the moment requires.  Marian Marsh is very good and Edward Arnold is almost satanic as the inspector.  The film looks quite beautiful despite its low budget thanks to cinematography by Lucien Ballard.

The complete film is currently available at a couple of different obvious online video sources.

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