Der Blaue Engel / The Blue Angel (1930)

Josef von Sternberg: Der Blaue Engel (DE 1930) starring Marlene Dietrich (Lola Lola) and Emil Jannings (Prof. Immanuel Rath).

[The title appears on screen as: Der blaue Engel. But Der Blaue Engel is the name of the bar.]
    Sininen Enkeli / Blå Ängeln.
    DE 1930. PC: Ufa. P: Erich Pommer. D: Josef von Sternberg. SC: Robert Liebmann, Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmoller – based on the novel Professor Unrat (1905) by Heinrich Mann. DP: Günther Rittau, Hans Schneeberger. AD: Otto Hunte, Emil Hasler. ED: Sam Winston. M: Friedrich Hollaender.
    CAST: Emil Jannings (Immanuel Rath), Marlene Dietrich (Lola Fröhlich), Kurt Gerron (Kiepert), Rosa Valetti (his wife Guste), Hans Albers (Mazeppa), Eduard von Winterstein (headmaster), Reinhold Bernt (clown), Rolf Müller (Angst), Gerhard Bienert (policeman), Ilse Fürstenberg (Rath's maid).
    106 min.
    A Transit Film / FWMS print with e-subtitles by AA operated by Lena Talvio.
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 24 Sep 2009.

AA: The print has an obviously digi-mastered look. Probably there are no brilliant prints of this film. Paramount burned the negative in ca 1960. The English-language version looks better visually, but is otherwise inferior.

Sternberg's masterpiece revisited (the first 30 minutes). This is my favourite Sternberg film, an ideal combination of style and substance, Marlene Dietrich's ironic, motherly, earthy charm always fascinating.

The most profound film based on the clown themes that were among the obsessions of the cinema in the 1910s and in the 1920s.

PS. See my Bologna 2002 notes on The Blue Angel. Returning to Finland after the 2002 Il Cinema Ritrovato, Peter von Bagh told me that he had not seen The Blue Angel for a long time. The film was painful for himself to watch since it evoked his father's remarriage.