When Marlene Dietrich Strutted Her Stuff And Made All The Drag Queens Weep- Joseph Von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus” (1932)-A Film Review   

DVD Review

By Will Bradley

Blonde Venus, starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant (yes that Cary Grant), directed by Joseph Von Sternberg, pre-Code 1932  

It is amazing how you get assignments for films sometimes from the site manager Greg Green who is the guy who gives them out these days. Everybody knows, or if not then get it here now, that Phil Larkin and I had been, have been if anybody wants to take up the challenge, in a long term continuing battle royal over who is the “real” James Bond (our respective choices Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan) which has spilled over into other reviews and brought in a couple of other reviewers. A reviewer like Seth Garth who apparently really does believe that our dispute is a tempest in a teapot. Of course, Seth, an old-timer like Phil probably thinks Agatha Christie is the cat’s meow and as well from reading some of his latest reviews he seems to be in a time machine set exclusively around the mid-1960s what with him going on and on about the summer of love, acid rock and the like subjects which got the previous site manager Allan Jackson the boot-and rightly so. I won’t even mention Bart Webber’s remarks since he hasn’t written a worthy review since he found out Humphrey Bogart died.  

Here is the weird part though since the time of my last Bond film review I have not been assigned any film reviews although I have had plenty of other assignments. Some of them like covering a Klimt exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with Mark Rothko thrown and on the political front the brewing controversies around the rise of the Alt-Right which has become increasingly public around the country in the aftermath of the Charlottesville events where they laid bare their fangs. (By the way I was assigned that beat since the massive counter-demonstrations against this movement have been spear-headed by young people and had argued to Greg that giving the assignment to one of the old guard would bring in off-beat and basically negative comparisons to their “glorious” 1960s. It didn’t hurt that I mentioned that these elders would be clueless about the different way, mostly via social media platforms, that the young organize today. Nobody needed to hear about mimeograph machine leaflet production, pay phone telephone calls or plastering the world with posters at midnight.)         

The drought is over now with this film review of one of Marlene Dietrich’s early Hollywood films directed by master director and one- time husband Joseph Von Sternberg Blonde Venus (blonde by virtue of a wig in this case). It was no accident that I received this assignment since in 2017 I was down in Washington on another assignment and decided to peek into the National Portrait Gallery to see what was new something I try to do when down in the “swamp” (the only term from Trump-land which resonates with me). While there I noticed that there was an exhibition featuring Marlene Dietrich and did a short report in this space on her career and her effect on the acting profession centered on her provocative bisexual use of men’s clothing in many of her films (including here) so that she was something of a forerunner and icon for sexual liberation. Moreover Marlene had a certain style Allan Jackson (that former site manager) old me that his growing up friend Timmy Riley, now professionally a “drag queen” under the name Miss Judy Garland out in San Francisco where he runs a famous “drag queen” nightclub told him was a close runner up to Ms. Garland among that entertainment set.      

This film gives an early view of that patterned Dietrich style from the men’ clothing while preforming to that look of utter distain and boredom which she gave off. The “hook” as Sam Lowell who is a pretty cool guy even if kind of ancient and knows a lot about these early films from a lifetime of reviewing likes to tell everybody they should be looking for in a film to hang their hat on is that Marlene after marriage and a child, a young boy, finds out that her scientist husband, Ned, played by wooden stick Herbert Marshall in something of a mismatch, has developed some rare and deadly radiation problem which requires a trip to Europe and a lot of dough to help cure. Marlene to the rescue via her “talent” as a singer and entertainer.  (She can act but the singing bit is hard on the nerves according to an associate who knows a thing or two about music and declared her off-pitch in English and not quite so bad in French.)   

Well not exactly Marlene to the rescue but Nick, Nick Townsend, the fixer man and a guy smitten by Marlene for some reason, played by a very young Cary Grant so this is no slough movie. While Ned is away getting his cure, which unknown to him Nick paid for after services rendered Marlene and Nick are seen cavorting. Except Ned comes back unknown to them and demands the custody of their son. Marlene flees and through a series of further down the social scale maneuvers is the subject of an all- points bulletin initiated by Ned. She finally gives up the kid, her Johnny and she takes a few steps further down the social ladder. As she hits bottom she decides to spring back and restart her career in Europe. That is where forlorn Nick is trying to forget her until he runs into her at a concert and they start up again. No good though since she still pines for her Johnny boy. Eventually she will get him, and Ned, back to the chagrin of Nick. Along the way we get that bunch of songs that are hard on the nerves but which also makes me wonder why those drag queens love to imitate her.