BLONDE VENUS
US, 1932, 93 minutes, Black and white.
Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Dickie Moore.
Directed by Josef von Sternberg.
Blonde Venus is one of several projects that Marlene Dietrich made in the early 1930s with Josef von Sternberg. He had directed her in the classic The Blue Angel in 1930 in Germany. However, Marlene Dietrich migrated to the United States as did von Sternberg. He directed her in a range of films from 1930 to 1936: Morocco, Dishonoured, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, The Devil is a Woman, Desire.
Herbert Marshall is the rather staid husband who experiences radium poisoning, goes to Germany for a cure and returns to find that his wife has worked in a nightclub in order to finance his cure. She has also taken up with the nightclub owner, Cary Grant. He disowns her and she goes to Paris. again working in clubs and teaming up with the nightclub owner. When she returns to America, she wants to get possession of her child – and is dismayed to find she doesn’t know which world she belongs in.
In one way the material is fairly conventional. However, it has become famous for one of its cabaret scenes, the dancers in black face dancing around a gorilla – from whom Dietrich emerges.
The film was written by Jules Furthman who was a newspaperman who began writing for films in 1915, prolific, writing up to eight films a year at this particular period. He also wrote Shanghai express for Marlene Dietrich. He wrote a number of very popular films of the 1930s and 1940s, Come and Get It, Only Angels Have Wings, The Outlaw, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Nightmare Alley. His last film was the screenplay for Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo.
1. How enjoyable a film? As a film of the early thirties and talkie period? Marlene Dietrich vehicle? Her work over the years with Joseph Von Sternburg? The impact in the early thirties, now? As entertainment, mirror
of the times?
2. Film techniques of 1932? the quality of black and white photography, the skills, angles, lighting? The use of locations for atmosphere? Europe, the city, Paris, the south of America? The American atmosphere? The use
of sets for example apartments, wealthy homes, outdoors, the sleazy settings of the south, for example, the brothels
the poor home, the asylum for women? The musical score and the classic, Hot Voodoo?
3. The meaning of the title and its emphasis? As applied to Marlene Dietrich and its role in the plot? Marlene
Dietrich as a sex symbol of the time and the way this was exploited? Her first appearance as swimming, the transition to American housewife, the transition then to star of cabaret as the Blonde Venue and such bizarre numbers as the Hot Voodoo, the contradiction in her appearance as vamp and as mother and housewife, the transition to her degradation and her wandering of the south, the resurrection to glamorous star of Paris and the life of wealth? The comments on the presentation of a heroine? Sex symbol? American expectations? For the film’s portrait of America in the thirties? The American dream of wealth and success? A land of hope? The domestic sequences and the traditional American style - father and hie ruling of the home, mother and her doing the housework and looking after the child, the pleasant homely sequences? The picture of American society - Nick and wealth and wealth and political corruption, the world of the nightclubs, the power? The splitting of characters between these two worlds and their inability to cope? The importance of despair within the American dream? The importance of gestures, of Helen being degraded and audiences perhaps expecting her death and her determination to succeed? The finale and the moral of this decline and fall and rise of the star and heroine?
4. The atmosphere of the introduction - the old fashioned picture of American students, their chatter, looking at the girls, the girls swimming, taking the clothes etc.? The way this was visualised for the audience, the way the story was told by Ned and Helen for Johnny at the start of the film? Ned's difficulty in telling the story at the end and yet his wanting to hear it? Helen telling the story? The framework for the themes of the film especially for the family?
5. Ned's role in the film - his serious style, his work, health symptoms, the interview with the doctor, the importance of his work? The fact that he had married Helen and brought her to America? Johnny and his role in the family? His decision about his health and his body for science? The importance of his return to Europe, the suddenness of his healing? His hard attitude on the discovery of Helen's behaviour on his return, the relentlessness of his pursuit? The clash with Nick? His spurning the money? The decision to let Helen in at the end and the telling of the story with her? His suffering in her behaviour, could they build their life again? After his treatment of her when he found her in the south?
6. Marlene Dietrich’s interpretation of Helen? Was she a credible character? At the beginning as an actress,
the transition to the scenes of her as mother, a domestic portrait for example the bath, telling the story, worrying about Johnny? Her decision to gain the money for Ned, her visiting the agent and being allowed in, the discussion of deals? Her billing as Blonde Venue? The impact of the Hot Voodoo number? The importance of the money, Nick's entry into her life? Seeing Ned off and Nick taking herself and Johnny from the wharf?
7. Nick as a man-about-town - his history with Taxi and her presence in the dressing room and in the nightclub? O'Connor and deals and the running of the club? The promotion of Venus? Nick's fascination with Helen? Infatuation? love? His presence at the farewell and taking her home? Setting her up in an apartment, giving her luxuries, and the decision to go away on a holiday and the ironic discovery by Ned? His letting her go, rediscovering her in Paris? The challenge to her and bringing her back? How interesting a character, how sympathetic to the audience, moral stances?
8. The importance of Helen's decision after the discovery by Ned, her decision to take Johnny? Their trekking all over America, the sleazy clubs, rooms, lack of food, the south, her work in the brothel, avoiding detection?
The growing despair and her allowing Ned to take Johnny away and the pathos of the scene at the railway station?
Her washing dishes for Johnny, the emotion in giving him up?
9. The poor house sequence and her giving the fifteen hundred dollars to the derelict woman? Audience
expectation of suicide and yet her decision to come out of this, her drive for success and her hard work?
10. The Paris sequence and the song and its impact, her appearance, hardness? Nick and the challenge? Did the audience expect her to change?
11. How credible was her return to domesticity after encountering Johnny, after the experience of running away with him, of her success?
12. The portrayal of emotions in this film as real, hard? As determined by situations? Love and hate, clutching at love and possession. despair? The wandering the labyrinth of despair and hardship in America? The ironic comment on success and the American dream? Popular entertainment yet grappling at a popular level with the values of anxiety and despair, love and hate?
