Totally Absurd - and Totally Watchable
Added 9/30/2009
BLONDE VENUS is a major Hollywood production masquerading as a loony "cult" movie. This jaw-dropping mix of mother love, sex melodrama, and androgynous musical numbers looks more like a Von Stroheim film than a Von Sternberg. Marlene Dietrich stars as a German showgirl who marries cultivated peeping tom Herbert Marshall and moves to America to becomes the most glamorous housewife in the tenants of New York. Years into the marriage, scientist Marshall becomes contaminated with a potentially fatal poisoning through exposure at work and needs $1,500 to go off to Germany for experimental treatments so Marlene decides to return to work in nightclubs and without as much as raising a exquisitely plucked eyebrow bewitches both a agent and a nightclub owner into immediately pushing her to singing stardom at top dollar, neither of whom bother to ask her to sing as much as a note to audition. At the nightclub, Ms. Marlene wows one and all with her Harvey Fierstein-like vocals, none more than multi-millionaire glamour boy Cary Grant who within hours has written Dietrich a check for the full $1,500 without her having to as much unbutton one button on her costume (imagine what she could have gotten had she been friendlier!) Marshall is on the next boat out to Germany and it doesn't take long for Cary to get something for his money. Herbert's potentially fatal illness is almost instantly cured and he shows up back in town earlier than the Mrs. expected - who when confronted, confesses all and wants to resume their old storybook marriage. Marshall however refuses and demands sole custody of their son which sees Lili Marlene fleeing with kid in tow as they hop it to one low dive after another across America with Marshall in pursuit.
To catalog the absurdity in this melodrama would take a few pages from Dietrich's full makeup job after some time skinny-dipping to her apartment in Texas which appears to be a boarding room/chicken coop with Marlene essaying a Garboesque detachment at all times from her split-second transformation from loving wife to predatory mistress to flophouse femme fatale. She's every bit as absurd as the movie - and like the film, she's amazingly effective. Herbert Marshall in the male lead has little more to do than be academic and anemic while Cary Grant as second choice comes off better in one of his major film roles as the too-good-to-be-true sugar daddy, young, handsome, and generous although he does have one of the least believable knockout punches in screen history.
The usually appealing child actor Dickie Moore alas is a disaster as the Marshall spawn - his slangy speech delivery makes him a most incredible child of Marshall and Dietrich - and at almost seven seems several years too old for this part which has him sleeping in a crib (!!) in an early scene and being coddled throughout the film by Dietrich as if he were three or four. Cary Grant has stated von Sternberg gave him no help with his performance and apparently he didn't help Dickie either, who baby talks his way through the film in worst precious-movie-kid fashion.
The film score is so loud and dramatic during Dietrch and Marshall's final confrontation at the old apartment, you expect to find Ann Savage strangled with a phone cord in the next room. You may be dumbstruck watching BLONDE VENUS - but you won't be bored.
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Marlene Dietrich is very touching
Added 9/30/2009
Director Josef von Sternberg collaborated with Marlene Dietrich to make highly successful movies at the height of depression era when silent movie transitioned to sound movies. The list includes; Blonde Venus, Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil is a Woman. Marlene Dietrich is not only beautiful but also an excellent actress. She offers brilliant performance as Helen Faraday who runs around the country to avoid authorities taking her only son, Johnny (Dickie Moore) from her, and give it the custody of her husband Edward Faraday (Herbert Marshall). One would like to remember another great classic, Madame X, starring Lana Turner and John Forsythe where a mother is separated from her son and she longs to get back to her son. The difference being the latter is highly dramatized which makes a grown-man cry. Director Sternberg has brilliantly handled this movie into a different direction which spares the viewers from agony. Yet the legendary lady of Hollywood fascinates viewers as a tender mother strongly protecting her child, who spends her evenings singing at the local night club, and be at home to offer her deep maternal love. She does her best to be very alluring. It touches us deeply when she tries to teach her son from a book like a school teacher or lullaby at his bedside.
The story has a twist in that Helen's unselfish nature to help her husband get treatment in Germany for radiation poisoning. She finds a willing millionaire Nick Townsend (Cary Grant), who helps her with cash needed. She lies to Edward that the money is advance on her salary from her boss Dan O'Connor (Robert O'Conner). After his treatment in Germany Edward finds out about Helen's infidelity, and demands the custody of Johnny. Helen and Nick meet again in Paris and agree to get married but at the end Edward and Helen unite to stay together.
The movie has interesting features; while Marlene Dietrich's singing is s a little rustic, but the film featuring live chickens in her French Quarter apartment in New Orleans is a nice touch. Hattie McDaniel as Helen's New Orleans maid Cora offers her best performance as a protective friend of Helen. This is a very touching story and I recommend it highly.
1. Marlene Dietrich - The Glamour Collection (Morocco/ Blonde Venus/ The Devil Is a Woman/ Flame of New Orleans/ Golden Earrings)
2. The Blue Angel
3. The Scarlet Empress - Criterion Collection
4. Marlene (1984)
5. Shanghai Express mit Marlene Dietrich
6. The Blue Angel (Enhanced) 1930
7. Portrait In Black / Madame X (Double Feature)
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Mug for the Camera!
Added 2/17/2009
Hey, I love this movie. I continue to be totally fascinated by the 'Hot Voodoo' number, with Marlene wearing a blonde afro wig--surrounded by Cotton Club dancers (notice the one who turns back-and-forth opposite of everyone else during the 2nd chorus!), and Dickie Moore is one of the most adorable child actors of all time. But Marlene's mugging is hilarious! She mugs more than Prince does in 'Purple Rain'! Too funny!
One thing I found very interesting...we rarely see Marlene's famous gams in the movie! Very disappointing.
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Easily, My Favorite Dietrich Film
Added 1/30/2009
Despite this soap opera premise, the movie almost plays like a film noir, with sharp dialog, great cinematography and tough characters. I love it, and am sorry I had to buy a whole package of lesser films just to get this movie (the Dietrich Glamor Collection.)
This was a very interesting story.....one of the best in the early era of sound. The only negative was that even though time passed, nobody - including the 6-year- old boy (Dickie Moore) - aged!
There were a few other things that didn't make sense, either, but the film is so captivating that one can ignore the gaffs and still really enjoy this. Marlene Dietrich, for instance, is mesmerizing at times. She could - except for those stupid 1930s pencil-thin eyebrows - look absolutely stunning. Make no mistake: she's alluring.
All the lead characters in here did their parts well and Moore, who gained fame as one of the "Little Rascals," is particularly endearing.
The adults, however, all have character flaws: a married Dietrich runs off with a wealthy young Cary Grant while her husband (Herbert Marshall) is off in Europe being treated for radium poisoning. Marshall is understandably bitter when he returns to find out what his wife was up to, but is too hard-hearted about letting his wife see the kid. Grant, of course, is an adulterer. Cary always did like those fun roles!
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delightful Dietrich drama
Added 3/27/2008
Like my fellow reviewers have noted, BLONDE VENUS is a melodrama that really shouldn't work as well as it does. The recipe for it's success lies solely with Marlene Dietrich. Teamed with her greatest director, Josef von Sternberg, BLONDE VENUS comes alive with lots of pathos and drama chiefly because of Dietrich and her dedicated performance.
When her husband (Herbert Marshall) is struck down with a potentially-fatal illness, housewife and mother Helen Faraday (Dietrich) reluctantly returns to the music-hall stage in order to fund his medical journey to Europe. Separated from her husband, Helen finds comfort in the arms of a kind millionaire (Cary Grant).
Although we never quite buy the extremely tawdry nature of Dietrich's character, in BLONDE VENUS she got to play a devoted mother--her scenes with child star Dickie Moore are a joy--and we can recognise the immense humanity and charm which she exuded naturally in real life. BLONDE VENUS displays Dietrich as the glamorous sex goddess (she sings the classic "Hot Voodoo" while dressed in a gorilla costume), but she also manages to connect on a motherly, maternal level with her character, who is very much a woman trapped between two worlds, never really sure of how to connect them in order to reconcile her past with her present.
If you enjoy Marlene Dietrich (plus the early roles of Cary Grant), BLONDE VENUS is for you!
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Totally Absurd - and Totally Watchable
Added 9/30/2009
BLONDE VENUS is a major Hollywood production masquerading as a loony "cult" movie. This jaw-dropping mix of mother love, sex melodrama, and androgynous musical numbers looks more like a Von Stroheim film than a Von Sternberg. Marlene Dietrich stars as a German showgirl who marries cultivated peeping tom Herbert Marshall and moves to America to becomes the most glamorous housewife in the tenants of New York. Years into the marriage, scientist Marshall becomes contaminated with a potentially fatal poisoning through exposure at work and needs $1,500 to go off to Germany for experimental treatments so Marlene decides to return to work in nightclubs and without as much as raising a exquisitely plucked eyebrow bewitches both a agent and a nightclub owner into immediately pushing her to singing stardom at top dollar, neither of whom bother to ask her to sing as much as a note to audition. At the nightclub, Ms. Marlene wows one and all with her Harvey Fierstein-like vocals, none more than multi-millionaire glamour boy Cary Grant who within hours has written Dietrich a check for the full $1,500 without her having to as much unbutton one button on her costume (imagine what she could have gotten had she been friendlier!) Marshall is on the next boat out to Germany and it doesn't take long for Cary to get something for his money. Herbert's potentially fatal illness is almost instantly cured and he shows up back in town earlier than the Mrs. expected - who when confronted, confesses all and wants to resume their old storybook marriage. Marshall however refuses and demands sole custody of their son which sees Lili Marlene fleeing with kid in tow as they hop it to one low dive after another across America with Marshall in pursuit.
To catalog the absurdity in this melodrama would take a few pages from Dietrich's full makeup job after some time skinny-dipping to her apartment in Texas which appears to be a boarding room/chicken coop with Marlene essaying a Garboesque detachment at all times from her split-second transformation from loving wife to predatory mistress to flophouse femme fatale. She's every bit as absurd as the movie - and like the film, she's amazingly effective. Herbert Marshall in the male lead has little more to do than be academic and anemic while Cary Grant as second choice comes off better in one of his major film roles as the too-good-to-be-true sugar daddy, young, handsome, and generous although he does have one of the least believable knockout punches in screen history.
The usually appealing child actor Dickie Moore alas is a disaster as the Marshall spawn - his slangy speech delivery makes him a most incredible child of Marshall and Dietrich - and at almost seven seems several years too old for this part which has him sleeping in a crib (!!) in an early scene and being coddled throughout the film by Dietrich as if he were three or four. Cary Grant has stated von Sternberg gave him no help with his performance and apparently he didn't help Dickie either, who baby talks his way through the film in worst precious-movie-kid fashion.
The film score is so loud and dramatic during Dietrch and Marshall's final confrontation at the old apartment, you expect to find Ann Savage strangled with a phone cord in the next room. You may be dumbstruck watching BLONDE VENUS - but you won't be bored.
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|
Marlene Dietrich is very touching
Added 9/30/2009
Director Josef von Sternberg collaborated with Marlene Dietrich to make highly successful movies at the height of depression era when silent movie transitioned to sound movies. The list includes; Blonde Venus, Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil is a Woman. Marlene Dietrich is not only beautiful but also an excellent actress. She offers brilliant performance as Helen Faraday who runs around the country to avoid authorities taking her only son, Johnny (Dickie Moore) from her, and give it the custody of her husband Edward Faraday (Herbert Marshall). One would like to remember another great classic, Madame X, starring Lana Turner and John Forsythe where a mother is separated from her son and she longs to get back to her son. The difference being the latter is highly dramatized which makes a grown-man cry. Director Sternberg has brilliantly handled this movie into a different direction which spares the viewers from agony. Yet the legendary lady of Hollywood fascinates viewers as a tender mother strongly protecting her child, who spends her evenings singing at the local night club, and be at home to offer her deep maternal love. She does her best to be very alluring. It touches us deeply when she tries to teach her son from a book like a school teacher or lullaby at his bedside.
The story has a twist in that Helen's unselfish nature to help her husband get treatment in Germany for radiation poisoning. She finds a willing millionaire Nick Townsend (Cary Grant), who helps her with cash needed. She lies to Edward that the money is advance on her salary from her boss Dan O'Connor (Robert O'Conner). After his treatment in Germany Edward finds out about Helen's infidelity, and demands the custody of Johnny. Helen and Nick meet again in Paris and agree to get married but at the end Edward and Helen unite to stay together.
The movie has interesting features; while Marlene Dietrich's singing is s a little rustic, but the film featuring live chickens in her French Quarter apartment in New Orleans is a nice touch. Hattie McDaniel as Helen's New Orleans maid Cora offers her best performance as a protective friend of Helen. This is a very touching story and I recommend it highly.
1. Marlene Dietrich - The Glamour Collection (Morocco/ Blonde Venus/ The Devil Is a Woman/ Flame of New Orleans/ Golden Earrings)
2. The Blue Angel
3. The Scarlet Empress - Criterion Collection
4. Marlene (1984)
5. Shanghai Express mit Marlene Dietrich
6. The Blue Angel (Enhanced) 1930
7. Portrait In Black / Madame X (Double Feature)
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Mug for the Camera!
Added 2/17/2009
Hey, I love this movie. I continue to be totally fascinated by the 'Hot Voodoo' number, with Marlene wearing a blonde afro wig--surrounded by Cotton Club dancers (notice the one who turns back-and-forth opposite of everyone else during the 2nd chorus!), and Dickie Moore is one of the most adorable child actors of all time. But Marlene's mugging is hilarious! She mugs more than Prince does in 'Purple Rain'! Too funny!
One thing I found very interesting...we rarely see Marlene's famous gams in the movie! Very disappointing.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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