Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg at Paramount, 1930-1935 (Limited Edition) – Blu-Ray Review.
There have been many great director/actor partnerships across the history of cinema. From D.W. Griffith and Lillian Gish to Scorsese and De Niro (or Scorsese and DiCaprio if you wish), every so often, the artistic vision of the director finds the perfect conduit to share with the world; someone who is on the same wavelength and understands the same shorthand which produces a special kind of magic.
One of these partnerships took place between 1930 – 1935 producing six films. They weren’t all box office successes but they were all entertaining and, occasionally, controversial. What they all have in common was the beauty they displayed on the screen, both from a technical point of view and through that of their glamorous leading actress. It was a partnership which began in Germany and crossed over to the Atlantic It started with the very first German sound film and ended up in the Hollywood Studio system.
The Austrian/American Director Josef von Sternberg first worked with his great muse Marlene Dietrich on The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel) in 1930. The story of a college professor so smitten by a cabaret dancer called Lola Lola, catapulted Von Sternberg and Dietrich across the sea to Paramount Pictures.
Under the helmsmanship of Adolph Zukor, Paramount became the home of such stars as Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Bing Crosby, Claudette Colbert, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Mae West, Carole Lombard and many more. It was the perfect home for Von Sternberg and Dietrich.
Now, almost nine decades later, British boutique Blu-Ray label, Powerhouse Indicator, has released all 6 of Dietrich & Von Sternberg’s Paramount films in a lavish limited edition boxset packed with features, commentaries and stunning 2 and 4K restorations.
The movies included in this collection are Morocco (1930 – the only film to receive a 2K upgrade), Dishonoured (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil is a Woman (1935). Each film is packed in it’s own handsome cardboard slipcase (this is the second set in a row where Indicator have ditched their regular plastic cases for cardboard slipcases), each featuring artwork from the era on the outside and inside covers, and they are accompanied by a beautiful 116-page book crammed with essays, interviews and more.
Simply put, this is one of the most perfectly presented Blu-Ray boxsets ever assembled and I have spent a significant amount of time holding it and admiring the packaging, the artwork and flicking through the book.
The 2K and 4K transfers are stunning. The blacks are deep and crisp, the whites are pure and clean. Although the films have aged, the production values stand up against many films released in the last 40 years. This is the magic of scanning these movies into 2K or 4K resolution prior to cleaning them up – they look just like they would have at the time of their initial release. As audiences first experienced these films in the magnificent movie palaces of the 1930s, this is as close to the same quality of prints they would have seen.
Take the fantastic train sequence in Shanghai Express. This is a lavish set which sees the titular train slowly moving through a scrummage of people, animals and buildings. Even with the sound down, the visuals still convey a sense of the cacophony of noises. This is the art of a silent director who understood the importance of visuals to explain what words can’t. The crispness of the picture is exemplified in the sequence when the train gets attacked. The soldiers who have been assigned to guard the train are filmed in silhouette, the bright lights behind the train contrasting with the dark shadows in the foreground, and any frame could be stripped from the film and hung on a wall. It is an extraordinarily beautiful moment in an equally beautiful film.
But Von Sternberg also understood the importance of editing, and this is wonderfully illustrated in the slow transitions we see in The Scarlet Empress (which cost a fortune and, unfortunately, failed to turn a profit).
However, one can’t speak of the director’s genius and ability to capture beauty on screen without acknowledging his muse, Marlene Dietrich. From the moment she sang Falling In Love Again (Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt) in The Blue Angel, it was obvious that Dietrich was going to be a star. She co-starred with Emil Jannings, one of the biggest stars of the time and winner of the very first Academy Award for best actor. She could have easily been acted off the screen but she manages to hold her own throughout.
Much has been written about her capacity to be alluring to both men and women; to personify a cool, detached beauty that has inspired women for decades (none more so than Madonna) and the iconic moments that Von Sternberg managed to photograph (from the palm on the glass to the glance to the sky, her face aglow, the rest in darkness). I won’t go into detail about her career and influences here, suffice to say this boxset brings to life these moments, recreating the magic they had at the time of their release. The two films I have mentioned so far also capture the range of Dietrich’s performances – from the cold allure of Shanghai Express to the energetic childishness of The Scarlet Empress – her scope is sometimes forgotten.
The staggering amount of special features on the discs provide a historic glimpse into the past, shedding light on who the protagonists were and the times in which they lived. One highlight is Jasper Sharp (someone fans of Japanese cinema will know well) talking about the American actress Anna Marie Wong, an underappreciated and talented actress actress who was the victim of racism by not only the Americans who didn’t realise that she too was an American, but also by the Chinese who didn’t like the way she was used to portray their country on film.
There’s an excellent Belgian retrospective on the Dishonoured disc which features interviews with Von Sternberg himself where he, quite controversially for cinephiles, claims that the fact that some of his films are now lost forever doesn’t bother him at all. As is usually the case for films from Powerhouse Indicator, some of the films have audio commentaries from respected and incredibly knowledgeable film scholars and critics and each one makes for engaging listening. While there is, inevitably for a set of this size, some information overlap across the six discs, it remains a comprehensive encyclopaedia of Dietrich & Von Sternberg’s collaborations at Paramount and is therefore a must-buy for serious fans of film. Aside from the entertainment offered by each film, it’s an important and detailed history lesson for cinephiles and lovers of Hollywood history. Only 6000 copies are available of this limited edition set so if you want to indulge in these marvellous movies from a wonderful bygone era you’d better get shopping quickly.
Once again Powerhouse Indicator have pulled out all the stops with a set which offers great value for money. All six films are wonderfully presented with superb audio and picture quality considering the age of the films. The special features are put together with great care and could easily take you a week or two to get through and the packaging and overall presentation is sublime. Indicator have become one of our absolute favourite boutique Blu-Ray labels and the consistency of the incredibly high quality of their releases is exemplified in this stunning Blu-Ray boxset which gets my absolute highest recommendation.
Film ’89 Verdict – 10/10.
INDICATOR LIMITED BLU-RAY EDITION BOX SET SPECIAL FEATURES:
MOROCCO:
- 2K restoration
- Original mono audio
- Audio commentary with film critics Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger (2019)
- Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 11 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses Morocco as well as his father’s early film career
- The Art of Josef von Sternberg (2019, 10 mins): Nicholas von Sternberg reflects on his father’s work in painting and sculpture
- Lux Radio Theatre: ‘The Legionnaire and the Lady’ (1936, 59 mins): radio adaptation of Morocco, starring Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
DISHONORED:
- 4K restoration
- Original mono audio
- Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 12 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses Dishonored
- Josef von Sternberg, a Retrospective (1969, 78 mins): feature-length television documentary by the acclaimed Belgian filmmaker Harry Kümel, containing rare interview footage with von Sternberg
- “I did what he told me to do.” (2019, 17 mins): video essay on the films of Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg by film historian Tag Gallagher
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
SHANGHAI EXPRESS:
- 4K restoration
- Original mono audio
- Audio commentary with critic and film historian David Thompson (2019)
- Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 4 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses Shanghai Express
- Trouble in Hollywood (2019, 24 mins): writer and filmmaker Jasper Sharp explores the life and career of actor Anna May Wong
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
BLONDE VENUS:
- 4K restoration
- Original mono audio
- Audio commentary with film and arts critic Adrian Martin (2019)
- Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 7 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses Blonde Venus
- Dietrich, a Queer Icon (2019, 25 mins): So Mayer, author of Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema, analyses the queer iconography and legacy of Marlene Dietrich
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
THE SCARLET EMPRESS:
- 4K restoration
- Original mono audio
- Audio commentary with writer and film programmer Tony Rayns (2019)
- Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 7 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses The Scarlet Empress
- Josef von Sternberg: An Introduction (2009, 75 mins): archival audio recording of von Sternberg’s biographer John Baxter exploring the director’s career in an event conducted at London’s BFI Southbank
- The Twilight of an Angel (2012, 54 mins): Dominique Leeb’s acclaimed French television documentary on Marlene Dietrich’s final years
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN:
- 4K restoration
- Original mono audio
- Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 9 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses The Devil Is a Woman
- The Fashion Side of Hollywood (1935, 11 mins): Paramount Pictures promotional film featuring acclaimed costume designer and long-time Marlene Dietrich collaborator Travis Banton
- Styling the Stars (2019, 23 mins): film historian Nathalie Morris explores the costume designs of Dietrich and von Sternberg’s Hollywood films
- If It Isn’t Pain (Then It Isn’t Love) (1935, 3 mins): surviving audio from a deleted musical number
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg at Paramount, 1930-1935 (Limited Edition) is available from all good Blu-Ray retailers now.