I Couldn't Have Been More Wrong About This Film | The Blue Angel

The Blue Angel is a German film released in 1930 directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Emil Jannings. It’s also, what many consider to be, the beginning of Marlene Dietrich’s rise to superstardom.

It tells the story of an uptight Professor at the local college Immanuel Rath, who after following his students to the local cabaret, The Blue Angel, allegedly in an attempt to reprimand the boys; he becomes infatuated…obsessed…with headliner Lola Lola, played by Dietrich. This leads to his eventual ruin and humiliation.

Fair warning, spoilers for The Blue Angel.

At first glance, it’s easy to read this film as a story of an upstanding citizen seduced and tricked into following this harlot into the seedy world of entertainment. The way Dietrich laughs when the Professor proposes, it seems like a celebration, her plan worked! The Professor eventually becomes a clown in the show, a clown who has a striking resemblance to a clown that we see earlier on in the film. Is this a former lover? Is this what Lola does? She chews up men and spits them out, her song certainly backs that up. So by the time the Professor, broken and humiliated, stumbles back to his old classroom and dies (does he die? Is he dead there?) that’s what I had bopping around in my head, it was the 30’s of course they’re going to have this story about a man RUINED BY A WOMAN!

But as the movie ended, thinking back on it, I realized it has a lot more going on. Did Lola really bring about his downfall? One; she wasn’t using him for his money. She knew he was going to go broke when he quit his job and that’s why, early on when he discovers a stack of risque photos and wants to get rid of them she tells him that they need to save the pictures so that they can sell them. I like how people have been doing this bit for almost a hundred years. “We will never ever sell these pictures!” Cut to him selling the pictures.

Two; she is seemingly always showing him genuine affection. When the Professor is told that he has to go back to his hometown and perform, Lola consoles him and tells him that no one will force him to humiliate himself. This isn’t a movie about a cabaret performer ruining a man, this is the story about a man projecting his fantasies onto a woman and then blaming her for his life falling apart. It is a story of his self destruction.

We see what a kinky little perv the Professor is early on when he confiscates some photos of Lola from his students and ogles them. Nothing wrong with getting turned on by some sexy photos, but he’s hiding it, repressing it, fetishizing it. He’s already built the fantasy in his head, in that moment and from that moment on he’s chasing that fantasy. He’s going to be the white knight that saves this poor woman from her situation. But, as it often does, real life starts to creep in and as it does he becomes more depressed and more bitter and we can assume angry with Lola, who didn’t do anything other than support him. So, while the Professor sees Lola’s infidelity towards the end of the film as the truth finally coming to light. This was her plan all along! You could see it from her perspective, a woman ignored by her depressed and angry husband showing interest in another man. Maybe not in the healthiest way, but look at this guy. Can you blame her for wanting to leave him?

And maybe this was a former lover, maybe this does happen to Lola a lot, not because she chews men up and spits them out, but because the men can’t handle her independence because they have an idea of who she is and when she doesn’t conform to that it drives them insane.

Aside from all that, the performances are terrific, Emil Jannings who came out of the silent era gives a big performance, but never over-the-top, his transition from uptight professor to despondent clown is incredible. He really gets lost in it. He won the first Best Actor Oscar in 1929…but then later starred in a bunch of Nazi propaganda films. So, yikes. Risky business watching movies from the 30’s. And Marlene Dietrich is incredible! I think this film could be a “woman ruins man” film without her nuanced performance. I think this is the first Dietrich film I’ve ever seen and I can’t wait to watch some more. The production design is also incredible, from the city streets to the cabaret.