Der Blaue Engel (1930) - film review

Immanuel Rath, professor of a provincial German school, is incensed when he learns that his pupils are frequenting a cabaret venue known as The Blue Angel.  Determined to put an end to this, he storms into the nightclub and verbally assaults the manager.  Whilst doing so, his attention is caught by the star of the cabaret, a seductively beautiful young woman named Lola.   So captivated is he by Lola’s charms that Rath is compelled to spend the night in her room.  When he returns to his school the next day, the professor is taunted by his pupils and is threatened with dismissal.  No matter; he has decided to marry Lola.  The young singer accepts Rath’s proposal in a carefree manner, but she insists that he gives up his job to join her as she tours the nightclubs of Europe.  Some years later, Rath has lost both his moral authority and his self-respect.  He is reduced to selling sordid photographs of his young wife.  Then he learns that he must perform a clown act at The Blue Angel in his former hometown.  It is the final humiliation…

The film that launched Marlene Dietrich’s international film career and became the most famous German film of all time is Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (a.k.a. Der Blaue Engel).  Made at the time when cinema was undergoing its biggest transition (from silent film to sound), the film is as much a technical achievement as it is an artistic masterpiece, and few directors managed to use sound as effectively, and as imaginatively, at this pivotal moment in film history.  The film was made in two versions: one in German, the other in English.  The two versions are slightly different, and the German version is considered to be the superior one (it is longer and is not marred by German actors struggling with their English pronunciation).

In spite of the limitations imposed on Sternberg by the technology at his disposal (sound cameras were far bulkier, far less moveable than their silent counterparts), he succeeds in creating a visual feel that perfectly suits the changing mood of the narrative, and the result is as spellbinding and sensual as anything produced in the silent era.  The lighting, photography and set design, coupled with the stylised performances, represent German expressionism at its most subtle and arguably most effective.  Far from distracting the audience, this visual style adds greatly to the mood and serves to heighten our emotional involvement with the film.

The star of the film is not Dietrich but Emil Jannings, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, actor in Germany during the age of the silent film.  He earned distinction for his larger-than-life performances in such films as The Laugh Last (1924) and Faust (1926), before embarking on a short-lived career in America (where he won an Oscar at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929).  The arrival of sound effectively ended his Hollywood career, so he returned to Germany to make The Blue Angel.  His association with Nazi propaganda in the 1940s put a definitive end to his career and explains why today he is largely forgotten, despite his prominence in the 1920s.

Jannings’ performance is the thing which most defines The Blue Angel and accounts for its great impact.  Initially appearing as a likeable buffoon, his character undergoes a harrowing transition as he succumbs to the irresistible charms of a young temptress, and he ends up a pitiful, self-loathing wreck of a man.  We cannot help but sympathise with him as the object of his desire drags him down into the mire, robbing him of his dignity, his status and his self-respect – and all for the love of a woman who has no real feelings at all.  What begins as playful comedy ends as one of the most poignant tragedies ever told.

Whilst she may not be focus of this film, Marlene Dietrich’s presence is keenly felt.  Her tempting “come and get me” poses have attained an iconic status, as has her number “Falling In Love Again”, which she sings here for the first time.  She is the prefect contrast to Jannings; whereas the latter is emotionally expressive, sympathetic and fully developed, she remains an aloof, superficial, almost two-dimension character, as if her own experiences have drained her humanity and left her cynical and unfeeling.  For this kind of role, Dietrich is perfect, and she is far from being the familiar vampish femme fatale.  Beneath Lola’s cool exterior we can just perceive her true nature, and this comes through best in the way she sings her songs.  There is a yearning in her stage performances that she fails to show in "real life", except fleetingly in the scene when she and the professor are having breakfast after – supposedly – their first night together.  To reveal too much about Lola would undermine the impact of Professor Rath’s tragic decline, but we see just enough not to see her as a simple villainess.

The Blue Angel is a film that deserves its reputation as a landmark in cinema history.  Its simple but compelling story (based on a novel by Heinrich Mann, with a slightly different ending) is transformed into a work of expressionist art, yet its intense performances give it a blistering humanity that raises it far above conventional melodrama.  The way it depicts the gradual moral decline of a respectable man has been emulated many times but rarely, if ever, with the force that we see in this legendary film.

© James Travers 2005

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