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."

mark.waltz Josef Von Sternberg really went over the top with this outrageous pre-code melodrama starring Marlene Dietrich about a devoted wife and mother (first seen as a single German girl swimming naked in a lake in her homeland) who becomes a kept woman in order to financially help her husband be cured of uranium poison. She later runs off with her son when he comes back and discovers her affair with Cary Grant, becoming a prostitute and later basically homeless in order to keep their whereabouts secret. She is forced to give him up, and is basically destitute when her fortunes turn and she becomes the singing toast of Paris. Von Sternberg lets Dietrich utilize every single emotion possible, running all over the world in every style, yet barely shedding a tear over all of heartache.Herbert Marshall is the unfortunate husband and Dickie Moore the toted kid. Grant's suave lover keeps getting the shaft as it is obvious where Dietrich's heart really is. She is the whole show, even performing in a gorilla suit she strips out of to sing "Hot Voodoo". Movie stills make this appear to be better than it is, its deliberate camp so obvious that you may laugh at it, not with it.Then, there is the editing, taking Dietrich down, down, down, ending up in a woman's shelter (15 cents a night) where she drunkenly stumbles in, tells off a bunch of old hags and stumbles right back out, and where do we see her next with no explanation of how she got there? Glamorously dressed to kill in Paris, of course, as famous as Josephine Baker. Only Von Sternberg and Dietrich could get away with this, style without substance and glamour without grace. The result is as phony as the curly blonde wig with arrows in it that she wears after stripping out of her gorilla fur.

bkoganbing Blonde Venus unfortunately turned out to be the one and only collaboration of Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. Sad to say though, Grant was not the lead here, just the other man who comes between Marlene and husband Herbert Marshall. There's no real chemistry in this one between any of the principal players and the best scenes are with Marlene and little Dickie Moore playing her son with Marshall.The best thing about Blonde Venus are Marlene's musical numbers and they're memorable because of the inimitable way she puts over a song. All Dietrich fans should treasure her Hot Voodoo number where Marlene has a gorilla suit on and does a sexy strip out of that costume and gives us a look at voodoo can do to us.But when its not showing Dietrich's legs off and her husky singing, the film is the story of a woman in love with two men. Husband Herbert Marshall is a research scientist who contracts 'radium poisoning' and needs money to go to Europe for a cure. Dietrich gets the money by doing some entertaining in a seedy dive where she comes to the attention of wealthy playboy Cary Grant. From there the plot progresses to the inevitable Hollywood conclusion with a script that was written by Joseph Von Sternberg who directed the film as well.Paramount was taking a shot in the dark here with radium poisoning gambit. The plain truth is they didn't know a whole lot about radioactivity then. The discoverer of radium Marie Curie did in fact die of cancer contracted from too much exposure to it. But one didn't just go somewhere for a miracle cure for that sort of thing.Herbert Marshall was always playing the injured party it seems in a whole lot of his films. He's well remembered for being Bette Davis's husband in The Little Foxes, a much better film than Blonde Venus. I also remember him in When Ladies Meet where he was cheating on Greer Garson with Joan Crawford and he went through the film with an air of innocence that you would think he was the party offended. Marshall had these roles down pat, but he had more to him in his acting repertoire.Even before The Code was put in place Paramount had a lot of trouble with the Hays Office in getting this one exhibited. Some changes were made that no doubt weakened the plot and the story. Marlene is basically in love with two guys at the same time and that was a no go back in the day.Blonde Venus didn't do that well at the box office, it was quite a let down from her previous film Shanghai Express. After this one she and Joseph Von Sternberg were separated and she did her next film, Song of Songs with Rouben Mamoulian.Blonde Venus is great Dietrich who's asked to carry a weak story.

Cyke 067: Blonde Venus (1932) - released 9/16/1932; viewed 6/18/06.BIRTHS: Patsy Cline.KEVIN: This was a very interesting movie, hence the lengthy review. Our third Von Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration (we missed 'Shanghai Express') is in a sense another step in Dietrich's screen persona. We've seen her go from indifferent seductress to romantic siren. Now we see her as a mother. Here she plays Helen, a nightclub singer turned housewife to Ned Faraday (Herbert Marshall). The deviously dysfunctional adventures begin when Ned becomes poisoned and must leave for a lengthy treatment while Helen goes back to work at the nightclubs to pay for his treatment and support their young son Johnny (Dickie Moore). Things get really interesting when she develops an intense relationship with suave millionaire Nick Townsend (28-year-old Cary Grant!), who promises to pay for her husband's treatment. When Ned returns, he soon learns of his wife's affair and demands that she leave him and her son. She immediately takes the boy and goes on the run, doing everything possible to stay ahead of the Missing Persons Bureau and to keep her son oblivious to the impossibility of her life. The three main characters, Dietrich, Marshall and Grant, are each heroic and villainous at the same time. Their actions can be construed as evil, but their motivations suggest otherwise. Or vice versa. Ned pays for her husband's treatment, but knowingly draws her away from her spouse. Helen kidnaps her son, yet sacrifices her well being and her happiness to keep him safe. When her husband finally gets him back, he does everything to make the boy forget his mother. The ending seems abrupt, but I liked it. It's a shame we don't see which path these characters choose, but I believe that the point is that their consciences have become clear along with the truth of their love. Whether they still truly love each other and can ever be happy together again is unclear, and doubtful, but the impact of the emotional event was such that I was not let down one bit when the film ended.DOUG: I was looking forward to watching the more famous 'Shanghai Express,' but that wasn't out on DVD. 'Blonde Venus' ended up on the list instead, and I worried that it wouldn't end up being worth watching for the Marlene Dietrich experience. Good news: It absolutely is. She's at the top of her game here, in pretty much every scene, and she plays the character beautifully, varying between loving mother and sexy cabaret singer. The key is that, while she is a great mother and a faithful wife, she loves to perform, something her husband and her benefactor can't quite understand about her. Which brings us to the debut of Cary Grant. Just as Gary Cooper made a splash for the (more or less) first time working with Dietrich in 'Morocco,' so now does Grant here. He exudes most of the charm that made him famous, with somewhat less of the virtue. This film is pure pre-Code; An opening scene where Dietrich and some other girls are skinny-dipping (really!) is especially memorable. The film contains some iconic scenes such as Dietrich in the white tailed coat (in contrast to her black one from 'Morocco'). She is the very definition of charisma as she sings. In contrast to 'The Blue Angel,' it is now Dietrich's turn to play a character in a downward spiral; after her husband kicks her out of the house, she is living on the street, trying to make the best for her son without letting him know how hard it is to get it. Herbert Marshall plays the husband. His character is a tricky balance indeed; at first he's the victim, then he's kind of the villain; he pulls this high-wire act very well so we never really hate him for anything he does. He reminded me very much of Laurence Harvey with his voice and manner. We're seeing him in our very next movie, 'Trouble in Paradise,' where HE'S the star! Last film: Love Me Tonight (1932). Next film: Trouble in Paradise (1932).