Blonde Venus

A melodrama set in America. Helen had been a stage performer in Germany. She married an American chemist and left the stage. They have a son. Ned is poisoned. He worked with radium at his laboratory and the treatment is in Europe. There is no money. Helen goes back to the stage. She finds work at a nightclub. She performs a number there. She comes on in a gorilla suit, strips it off, and puts on a blonde wig. There is a man at the club. Nick is rich, a politician, and he gives Helen money. Ned goes to Europe and recovers. He learns everything when he returns. He wants the child. From there the film becomes a story of flight. Helen goes south with her son, moves from town to town, and takes a worse job in each. The narrative is very hard in this section. Cheap hotels, the street, a jail, and begging. Then it turns once more. Helen becomes famous again in Paris. What the narrative is interested in is not a fall but a bargain: its idea is that the woman has to trade one thing for another every time, and that this is presented as a choice. The images are in Sternberg's known manner. Smoke, gauze, shafts of light and a camera that stays long on a face. A hard fight broke out with the studio over the script. The company found the story morally objectionable, demanded changes, and Dietrich stopped working for a while; the film was only shot after the text was rewritten. Cary Grant was very early in his career. Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant and Dickie Moore are in the cast. Josef von Sternberg directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1930s Hollywood, Sternberg's images and Dietrich. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a consistent plot; the narrative jumps after the midpoint and the last section looks rushed.