Directed by:
Josef von SternbergCast:
Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Dickie Moore, Rita La Roy, Robert Emmett O'Connor, Gene Morgan, Sidney Toler, Morgan Wallace (more)Plots(1)
Josef von Sternberg returned Marlene Dietrich to the stage in Blonde Venus,both a glittering spectacle and a sweeping melodrama about motherly devotion. Unfolding episodically, the film tells the story of Helen (Dietrich), once a German chanteuse, now an American housewife, who resurrects her stage career after her husband (Herbert Marshall) falls ill; she then becomes the mistress of a millionaire (Cary Grant), in a slide from loving martyr to dishonored woman. Despite production difficulties courtesy of the Hays Office, the director’s baroque visual style shines, as do one of the most memorable musical numbers in all of cinema and a parade of visionary costumes by von Sternberg and Dietrich’s longtime collaborator Travis Banton. (Criterion)
(more)Cast
Marlene Dietrich
German Empire
Best movies:
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Blue Angel (1930)
Herbert Marshall
UK
Best movies:
The Little Foxes (1941)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Cary Grant
UK
Best movies:
North by Northwest (1959)
Charade (1963)
Holiday (1938)
Dickie Moore
USA
Best movies:
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Out of the Past (1947)
Rita La Roy
USA
Best movies:
Blonde Venus (1932)
Hot Saturday (1932)
Sergeant York (1941)
Robert Emmett O'Connor
USA
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
Easter Parade (1948)
Gene Morgan
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Sidney Toler
USA
Best movies:
Double Wedding (1937)
If I Were King (1938)
Our Relations (1936)
Morgan Wallace
USA
Best movies:
Fury (1936)
Gaslight (1944)
Union Pacific (1939)
Cecil Cunningham
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
It's a Wonderful World (1939)
Monkey Business (1931)
Sterling Holloway
USA
Best movies:
Bambi (1942)
Dumbo (1941)
The Jungle Book (1967)
Kent Taylor
USA
Best movies:
The Sign of the Cross (1932)
One Hour with You (1932)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Hattie McDaniel
USA
Best movies:
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Carefree (1938)
Vivacious Lady (1938)
Clarence Muse
USA
Best movies:
Double Indemnity (1944)
Love Crazy (1941)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Evelyn Preer
USA
Best movies:
Blonde Venus (1932)
Within Our Gates (1920)
Bess Flowers
USA
Best movies:
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Rear Window (1954)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Mary Gordon
UK
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
It Started with Eve (1941)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Al Bridge
USA
Best movies:
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Dennis O'Keefe
USA
Best movies:
Producers' Showcase (1954) (series)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Fury (1936)
Dewey Robinson
USA
Best movies:
Casablanca (1942)
Scarlet Street (1945)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)