Blonde Venus (1932) Director: Josef von Sternberg
“Snap out of it, kid. Tomorrow’s another day.”
★★★★★
The story for Blonde Venus was created by Josef von Sternberg and his fellow screen-writer, Jules Furthman, however the original story was called “Mother Love,” written by none other than Marlene Dietrich. Blonde Venus is another noir-esque alluring film collaboration between Dietrich and von Sternberg in which Dietrich delivers a terrific dual performance as she straddles the line between innocent maternal figure, and glittering, sexualized late-night cabaret singer. She delivers several great musical numbers in the film, as well –“Hot Voodoo” and “You Little So-and-So” and “I Couldn’t Be Annoyed.” The appearance of Cary Grant as her wealthy suitor is an unusually villainous role for him but it surprisingly works.
At the outset, several American tourists are traveling in Germany when they stumble upon a group of naked women swimming. From this point one of the young American men named Ned pursues one of the German women named Helen (played by Marlene Dietrich). We see them next later when they are married with a child. They love each other, however they are impoverished. Ned tries to sell his body to science after accidentally believing he poisoned himself while working as a chemist. However, the couple decides to send Ned away to get treatment for radiation poisoning. Meanwhile, Helen gets a job as a Cabaret girl where she meets a dashing man named Nick Townsend (played by a young Cary Grant). He is a politician and frequenter of the night club. He gives Helen money in exchange for what they call “favors.” She lies to her husband, Ned, about how she got the money for his treatment. He goes away for treatment, and then Nick brings Helen to live with him (thus removing her need to work during the summer). They go on a vacation together and she returns home to find Ned already waiting for her. She confesses her infidelity and when he disowns her, Helen flees and lives on the run with her son while Ned has the police search for her, trailing her performances throughout Europe. Eventually, she relents and gives up her son quietly to Ned. She then devotes herself to a successful cabaret career in Paris where she runs into Nick again. They plan to move to the United States to be married, but she returns once more home where she and Ned have a touching moment re-telling the story of how they first met. The ending is somewhat ambiguous, however we are led to believe they decide to return to one another for the sake of a stable household for their young son, Johnny.
The newly formed Hay’s Office apparently gave this film quite a difficult time, owing to its scandalous subject matter (see the scene in which Dietrich performs a striptease out of a gorilla suit).
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Credits
- Director: Josef von Sternberg
- Written by: Jules Furthman, S. K. Lauren, and Josef von Sternberg (uncredited)
- Based on: “Mother Love” short story by Marlene Dietrich
- Produced by: Josef von Sternberg
- Starring:
- Marlene Dietrich…..Helen Faraday
- Herbert Marshall…..Edward ‘Ned’ Faraday
- Cary Grant…..Nick Townsend
- Dickie Moore…..Johnny Faraday
- Cinematography: Bert Glennon
- Edited by: Josef von Sternberg (uncredited)
- Music by: W. Franke Harling, John Leipold, Paul Marquardt, and Oscar Potoker
- Distributed by: Paramount Pictures