DIRECTOR: Josef von Sternberg
PRODUCER: Erich Pommer
PRODUCTION CO: UFA
SCREENPLAY: Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller, Robert Liebmann, Josef von Sternberg, baased on the novel Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann
PHOTOGRAPHY: Günther Rittau, Hans Schneeberger
EDITORS: Walter Klee, Sam Winston
MUSIC: Friedrich Hollaender, Robert Liebmann, Franz Waxman
WITH: Emil Jannings (Professor Immanuel Rath), Marlene Dietrich (Lola Lola), Kurt Gerron (Kiepert), Rosa Valetti (Guste), Hans Albers (Mazeppa), Reinhold Bernt (Clown)
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REVIEW

“Austrian-born, American-schooled Josef von Sternberg went to Berlin to direct Emil Jannings in the actor’s first sound film. But the performer for whom The Blue Angel is best remembered is not Jannings but Marlene Dietrich. Shot simultaneously in German and English-language versions the film made Dietrich an international icon with the role of Lola Lola, a performer in a cabaret dripping with atmospheric Weimar sleaze. Lola’s coarse crooning, bold manner, and signature costume — white top hat, black stockings, and little else — reduce Jannings’s prim professor to a groveling, crowing caricature of masochistic compulsion.”

– Juliet Clark, BAMPFA

“With her silver top hat and frilly underwear, Dietrich became world famous as she threw her head back in a gesture of extravagant abandon and breathily sang her keynote song about infatuated lovers fluttering around her like moths to a flame. In German, it’s: ‘Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss / aus Liebe eingestellt’ — ’I am from top to toe, ready for love.’ But in the more famous English-language version, it’s: ‘Falling in love again, never wanted to…’”

– Paul Bradshaw, Guardian 

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS*

Auckland  
Tuesday, 02 June, 6.15pm

​Tauranga  
Wednesday, 10 June, 6.00pm

Wellington  
Monday, 22 June, 6.00pm

Wellington  
Monday, 22 June, 8.30pm

Queenstown 
Tuesday, 28 July, 8.00pm​

Dunedin  
Wednesday, 05 August, 7.30pm

Nelson 
Wednesday, 12 August, 6.00pm

Palmerston North
Wednesday, 19 August, 6.00pm

​*Non-members welcome by donation (notes only please)​
GERMAN CINEMA >>
German Cinema selection presented in
co-operation with the Goethe-Institut