Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

christopher-underwood Oh dear, only a couple of years on from the brilliance of The Blue Angel, Sternberg is back in the US and all the innocence has gone. All that beauty and charm, the wondrous and sexy costumes, the natural movement and the free actions, the whole 'I can't help it', has gone. Dietrich is all spruced up and got to act all 'mummy'. Needless to say there would have been problems with the Code but if the lovely, seeming, naked bathing at the start were allowed, surely there was no need to pile on the sentimentality so crudely. I guess it is clear she sleeps with Grant for money at the start and has to be seen to 'pay for it' but then why oh why have her go back to playing 'mummy' at the end? Very sad. The film itself as melodrama is okay, I suppose, but it could and should have been much more.

blanche-2 I'm not questioning what happened with "Blonde Venus." I'm asking a deeper question. Though I like many of today's stars, when you see a Dietrich or a Grant, they make the stars of today look like - well, I guess you'd say plain vanilla."Blonde Venus" stars the glorious Marlene Dietrich, a goddess if there ever was one, beautiful, glamorous, magnetic, leggy, with a beautiful speaking voice and a nice way with a line or a song. When the movie starts, she's a German cabaret singer, Helen Farraday, who is skinny-dipping with her colleagues when some hikers come by, one of whom is Ned (Herbert Marshall). They eventually marry and have a son (Dickie Moore).However, Ned develops radiation poisoning and needs an expensive treatment in order to be cured. To get the money, Helen returns to her life as a cabaret singer, and she becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. But the money isn't happening fast enough. She finally gets the rest of the money by taking up with the wealthy Nick Townsend (Cary Grant). He falls madly in love with her.When Ned returns cured and learns she was unfaithful, he intends to divorce her. Afraid of losing her son, Helen grabs him and leaves. She is constantly one step ahead of the police. Soon, she is unable to work as the police are haunting the cabarets, and she becomes destitute and likely a prostitute. When she is caught, she gives up her son to Ned, goes to Paris, and rebuilds her career.Helen ultimately reconnects with Nick, but she wants to see her child.Dietrich is dazzling, singing "Hot Voodoo," "You Little So-and-So," and "I Couldn't Be Annoyed." As Nick, Grant is not the Cary Grant that we knew later on; he hadn't yet invented his Cary Grant persona. He was not given much direction by von Sternberg, and frankly, doesn't make a huge impression. He did attribute von Sternberg for telling him to part his hair on the opposite side, which he did for the rest of his life.Dietrich's best scenes are with her son, but she gives a very sympathetic performance.So here's my question: What happened to personality in movies? In opera? We have great acting, versatility, wonderful singing, but it feels like what we once called star quality is gone. We still have interesting-looking people, but they're not usually stars, they're supporting players. Do audiences not want to make an emotional investment in a performer? I don't know. I only that Ayn Rand, though many people disagree with her philosophy, was prescient when, in The Fountainhead, she predicted the elevation of mediocrity. I don't blame the actors. I blame something else -- I just don't know what. Even though "Blonde Venus" isn't a great film, it features a larger than life star with larger than life looks. That's gone. As Bette Davis said, "Actors today want to be real. But real acting is larger than life."

Edgar Soberon Torchia In his fourth film with Marlene Dietrich, Josef von Sternberg recovered part of the frenetic passion of "The Blue Angel", and although he did not reach the drama of that cruel tale of obsession, he took his muse away from the parodies of an African adventure in "Morocco", or the Chinese affair in "Shanghai Express", if Marlene still insisted on placing her hands on her hips as a bodybuilder. In "Blonde Venus", she is again a German singer who has been domesticated by her marriage to an American chemist (Herbert Marshall, in one of the victim roles he specialized in, usually with Bette Davis as his nemesis). However she is soon back on stage when her husband gets sick for being continuously exposed to radium, and has to receive an expensive treatment in Germany. After a great and funky musical number in which she first struts around the cabaret wearing a gorilla suit, and later seduces the audience with her singing, Marlene obtains in the night of her debut the moneys for the trip and treatment, from the hands of a young and handsome politician (Cary Grant), with whom she has an intense romance, while the husband is abroad. The main course this time is poor Marlene's decadence and her eventual rebirth: there is a bit of sadism in covering her with glitter from head to toe, and then make her wear torn, cheap clothes; and we are certainly a masochist audience watching such an outrage. Although there are even a few aquatic shots of naked girls in this tale of moral decay, the influence of the nefarious censor Will H. Hays was already felt, so Marlene goes back to Marshall's bland arms and to their little son (the unbearable Dickie Moore), and leaves Grant, with whom she surely had a very good time, but… she and Sternberg could not beat the "good customs" of the day. In any case there is a lot here to enjoy, so have a good time, but prepare your handkerchief or buy yourself a pack of Kleenex.

Luis Guillermo Cardona We do not know, that moment in history, we lost the direction and the feeling of having made some of the worst paradigms we have taken as a way of life. How many times will God - and even the devil himself - his brow contracted a smile, to hear men say: "This is mine," "She's mine","He's mine." ¿When will we understand that all have diminishing the love? If it restricts your freedom, not for your sake but because I need you... and so is my love. ¡Who cares if you're not happy as long as I'm happy! I will compensate you somehow. ¡What can I do if the world is full of interesting people! But, as you're concerned, the only (only) that may be interested, is me. You leave or I'll kill you if you are unfaithful... but do you know? I, too, how many times I've wanted to tell you the infidel!... And I would confess that sometimes I have been: thinking (million times!), word (hundreds of times!) and work (a few times).On a planet with millions of beautiful and interesting beings, ¿how one person belong to?, ¿How do swear that I will be yours? ¡Illusory promises! We are a couple standing in a bucket full of lies. Problems, tantrums, separation... raged in the day to day because of the possession. ¿What is that you can own? Become well this question. ¿Someone I can have?, ¿I would allow someone who owns me? Every time you flow, and generate ideas, feelings, words, actions... ¿Can someone "own" (have), except occasionally, all you are? "Blonde Venus" is a nice movie that I have moved to these reflections. It is the story of a woman who loves her husband, but, wanting to help, she meets another man who is sexy, gallant, generous, rich, and no possessiveness. He gives all of himself and is happy to have her what she wants to give. And when he feels she wants to return to the other, he walks away. No calls, no require, no charges... just accept. THIS IS CALLED LOVE! This is how he truly loves.Legitimate husband, in contrast, takes revenge on her, leaves and stalks to remove your child, you bitter and puts on a face an opportunistic world that becomes cold as an iceberg. And when it succeeds legitimacy, one feels that won the absurd laws of society, but also feels that lost love. We grant the benefit of the doubt because there is no reconciliation and forgiveness. Let us hope that love is born again. The Dietrich strikes a role that impacts and moving our fibers. Runs her life and gives an example of character and resilience. And, as usual, the teacher Josef von Sternberg delights with a proposal not exotic, sensual, irreverent, and scenarios perfectly romantic decorating adventure.This film is making history. Do not miss it.