Robert Liebmann, Josef Von Sternberg

Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann

Gunther Rittau, Hans Schneeberger

Max Steiner

Sam Winston

with:
Emil Jannings (Prof.Immanuel Rath)
Marlene Dietrich (Lola Lola)
Kurt Gerron (Kiepert)
Rosa Valetti (Guste Kiepert)
Hans Albers (Mazeppa)

der blaue engel

An actress's trademark, the figure of a glittering vamp, and a vehicle to fame for an inspired director: these are the important threads that run together in The Blue Angel, a gritty 1920's tale in Josef von Sternberg's film adaption of Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat.

Sternberg's The Blue Angel, which catapulted Marlene Dietrich to fame is one of those classics whose legends are more powerful than the film itself. Today with a distance of seventy years, we can separate the old fashioned elements from those that stand out as artistically timeless. At the time of its publication, Heinrich Mann's malicious tale of a provincial teacher full of Wilhelmian hypocrisy and ruined by his obsession for a nightclub singer, must have struck its readers - weaned as they were on Freud and his psychoanalysis - like a grotesque figure in a panoptican. Although more recent, Emil Janning's performance as Professor Rath seems outdated; as he savors each and every expression and coquettishly poses as a tragic figure, Janning seems caught in the emotive pathos that characterized the silent movies. By contrast, Marlene Dietrich, with her lascivious casualness, is like a breath of fresh air.

the blue angel
(1930)

When Professor Rath, nicknamed Unrath (the irony of which, however, is lost in translation - Rat meaning advice and Unrat meaning garbage), catches the students in the demimonde establishment, the Blue Angel, gawking at the legs of an immortal artiste named Lola and listening to her cheeky songs, he preaches unctuously of a life of virtue. He wants to cure his unruly charges of their 'sinful behaviour' but ends up falling under Lola's spell himself as he listens to her song They call me wicked Lola. Soon he is completely infatuated and becomes her lover and pathetic cuckold. He ends up travelling with the troupe as a clown - pitifully devoted to Lola while she openly flirts with Mazeepa (Hans Albers).

the blue angel
(1930)

Sternberg's style is firmly based in the chiarascuro of German expressionalism and full of teary eyed sentimentalism, such as the professor's spiritual death in an empty classroom to the sound of a Glockenspiel playing the tune Ub Immer Treu und Redlichkeit (Always Practice Honesty and Loyalty). The story is a tragedy of social descent and self destruction. The film's rituals and world famous poses, including the musical trademarks by Friedrich Hollaender, have long since been separated from their context; they are ornaments in the history of film - the beginning of the Marlene myth, perpetuated and celebrated by Dietrich herself until her death in 1922.

The film may disappoint younger audiences, interested neither in its history nor in its reflection of the era, folks who have taken cheap flights to Germany in an effort to learn more about the history and era will enjoy it though. Today, it comes to life only as a precious museum piece.