Morocco

An early sound film set in Morocco. Amy arrives by ship. She is a cabaret singer, alone, and does not speak of her past. She goes on stage at a nightclub. She comes out in tails and a top hat, sings, and kisses a woman sitting in the audience. That scene is the film's most remembered moment. In 1930 the men's clothing and that kiss pushed directly at the limits of the period. There are two men in the room. La Rue is a wealthy painter and proposes marriage; Tom is a legionnaire and offers nothing. Amy chooses Tom. From there the film is a story of leaving and staying. The legion is sent into the desert, comes back, is sent again, and Amy makes a decision each time. La Rue waits patiently. He knows she does not love him and stands by her anyway. What the narrative is interested in is not love but choice: the film is about a woman deciding between a safe life and an uncertain man, and it does not present the decision as romantic. The last scene is its signature. Amy takes off her shoes and steps into the sand behind the column marching into the desert. Light and shadow are the real language. The director breaks the face with the lines of shutters, with smoke and with gauze. It was Marlene Dietrich's first American film and her only Academy Award nomination came for this part. Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou are in the cast. Josef von Sternberg directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes early Hollywood and melodrama built visually. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a fast narrative; there is little dialogue, the pace is slow, and some scenes move to the rhythm of silent cinema.