Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel] (1930)

(On Cable TV, March 2019) Anyone getting pulled into serious film history will eventually watch films not for their entertainment value, but because of their historical importance, however loosely defined that can be. In the case of The Blue Angel, the film is most often cited as being important for being the first German full-length sound picture, and perhaps more importantly featuring Marlene Dietrich in her first big-screen role. Much has also been written about the very close relationship between Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg—there’s clearly a near-voyeuristic quality to the film as it captures her cabaret act. It’s all meant to be sexy, but for a very narrow definition of it—and since I’m neither a big fan of Dietrich nor the androgynous look she often sported, the effect is somewhat lost. It doesn’t help that The Blue Angel plays like a warning against the siren call of her appeal—our poor protagonist goes from being a respected teacher to a miserable cuckolded cabaret clown throughout the entire film. I found Dietrich far more interesting in the later Shanghai Run, or the much later Witness for the Prosecution, but hey—this is an imposed viewing. I’m not any fonder of the film’s mortally slow pacing, in which roughly a minute’s worth of plot takes ten minutes to complete—the film may have been with sound, but it kept the pacing problems of the silent era. None of this was helped by a terrible viewing experience: the film I watched had major, major sound issues, with sound interruptions and major crackling issues to the point where I muted the film. When I turned it back on later during the film, the broadcast was entirely silent. I’d normally blame the broadcast, but this was on Turner Classic Movies, which takes great care to show movies in the best available format. No matter where or how or why, I didn’t get much out of The Blue Angel other than a sense that I could cross it off my list and be done with it.