1930 uplifting German melodramaRating: 17/20
Plot: Professor Garbage, respectable while not necessarily respected, confiscates some suggestive postcards depicting leggy Lola currently performing at a burlesque show at a dive called The Blue Angel. With his students distracted and corrupted,the good professor decides to do something about it. So he makes a trip to The Blue Angel to lust after the lovely Lola himself. Quick ruination ensues.
Boy, that Marlene Dietrich had legs, and she knew how to use them. Her legs' performance is very very good, especially good for 1930, and Emil Jannings gives a quiet, realistic (especially for 1930) performance as the tragic protagonist. Jannings is a very good actor, and there seemed to be no problems transitioning from silent to sound movies. Really, though, it's the scenes where he remains silent where he is the best. Right from the beginning, in his apartment and in his classroom, you get the feel that he's living an incomplete life. The tone is somber throughout although it's not all gloom. There are some humorous touches (the way the professor blows his nose, his teaching of the correct pronunciation of the word "the") that I like. Symbolic imagery (dead birds, clowns and clown collars--admittedly obvious in that early form sort of way) doesn't get in the way. I really liked a scene in Lola's room when the professor studies two side-by-side reflections of himself (hinting that there's another professor about to emerge) and another with a singing bird and cage-life shadows on the wall that echoes the very first scene of the movie. The scenes in The Blue Angel, filled with magic and bawdiness and clowns, are well done, the screen cluttered with all kinds of posters and props and other things to see. There's also some expressionistic scenery, mostly in the street scenes, that give a visual for the emotional claustrophobia the professor is about to experience. There are some slower moments and some parts of the plot that might have benefited from being stretched. As an almost-fable starring Emil Jannings, this does have a lot in common with The Last Laugh. I think I might prefer The Last Laugh despite that weird ending it had.
Give it another go, winter rates.
I need to get the german version from netflix and I only get one movie at a time so it'll be a while ...
ReplyDeleteseriously the English version I couldn't make out 75% of what was being said.
The scene with the anguished chicken call near the end might have been one of the saddest things I have ever seen in film. I also loved how Lola was clearly warning what to expect through her songs. I think this is a devastating movie that does have a lot in common with "The Last Laugh", as you say. I like this one better because it wasn't afraid to go dark in a way the story demanded and didn't flinch at the end. An 18.
ReplyDeleteThe replacement for this is "The Grand Illusion", a French film ffrom 1937.
ReplyDelete****SPOILER ALERT****
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to use that.
The chicken call was pretty devastating, as were some other scenes. You just knew the poor guy's life was spiraling out of control and that there was really nothing he could do about it. Lola's lyrical foreshadowing sort of filled us in on how that was all going to turn out. Despite the devastating moments, there was a lot of great humor though. That, for me, separated it from boring period melodrama and boosted the rating a bit.