The Blue Angel (1930)

The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel)
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Written by Carl Zuckmayer et al from a novel by Heinrich Mann
1930/Germany
UFA/Paramount
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental of Kino restoration

[singing] Lola Lola: Falling in love again, never wanted to. What’s a girl to do? I can’t help it. What choice do I have? That’s the way I’m made. Love is all I know, I can’t help it. Men swarm around me like moths ’round a flame. And if their wings are singed, surely I can’t be blamed.

I love this tawdry, erotic, tragicomic masterpiece.

Professor Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) is a pompous English teacher at a boy’s high school.  His students universally hate him, calling him Professor Unrat (Professor “rat shit” or “garbage”) both behind his back and in front of him.  And they have good reason.  He humiliates the boys during their English recitation and punishes them for visiting a local hot spot called “The Blue Angel” to leer at and flirt with star attraction Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich).  The act is naughty in the extreme.

But when Rath shows up to ask the singer to stop corrupting his students, she seduces him in turn.  It’s all a big joke to her.  He stays the night and asks her to marry him in the morning.  She thinks this is the most hilarious thing she has ever heard and goes through with it as a lark.

Five years pass and the Professor is reduced to selling her naughty postcards and painting her nails.  When he has lost his dignity altogether, the management decides to take its show back to his home town and make the Professor its star.  He is forced to go through with it at the exact time that it is evident that he will lose Lola entirely to a strong man.

I’ve seen this several times before and find it imminently rewatchable. I am completely blown over by Emile Janning’s performance. You laugh at him and feel sorry for him at the same time.  His face is unbelievably expressive and he had this kind of humiliated character sharpened to a fine edge by this time. Dietrich is equally wonderful, really. She may not be acting to the same extent but she is so natural in front of the camera that who cares. The sets and costumes are wonderful.

Von Sternberg has given this film a wonderful rhythm. I loved the cock crow that begins the movie and then is echoed by Jannings during the wedding dinner and again during his humiliation at the end. There are so many other elements that repeat. None are obtrusive but all are a mark of masterful story telling.  Highly recommended.

Re-release trailer

Dietrich’s screen test – a natural born movie star