Blonde venus
Alt.: Velvet / Deep Night; T. It.: Venere Bionda; Sog.: Jules Furthmann; Scen.: Jules Furthmann, S.K Lauren; F.: Bert Glennon; Or.: William Rand, Benny Mayer; Ass. Or.: Lucien Ballard, Neal Beckner, Paul Ivano; Su.: Harry D. English; Mu.: Ralph Rainger, Sam Coslow, Leo Robin; Int.: Marlene Dietrich (Helen Faraday O Helen Jones), Herbert Marshall (Edward Faraday), Cary Grant (Nick Townsend), Dickie Moore (Johnny Faraday), Gene Morgan (Ben Smith), Rita La Roy (“Taxibelle” Hoorer), Robert Emmett O’connor (“Dan” O’connor), Sidney Toler (Detective Wilson), Morgan Wallace (Dottor Pierce), Hattie Mcdaniel (Cora, Governante Dihelen), Francis Sayles (Charlie Blaine), Evelyn Preer (Iola), Clifford Dempsey (Il Giudice Nel Locale Notturno), Davison Clark (Il Barista), Bessie Lyle (Grace), Brady Kline (L’ufficiale Dinew Orleans), Dewey Robinson (Il Proprietario Greco), Mildred Washington (La Ragazza Nera), Gertrude Short (La Receptionist), Harold Berquist (Il Ragazzone), Al Bridge (Il Buttafuori), Marcelle Corday (La Cameriera), Mary Gordon (L’affittacamere), Eric Alden (Una Guardia), Cecil Cunningham (Il Proprietario Del Cabaret), Sterling Holloway (Joe), Ferdinand Schumann-Heink, Robert Graves, Jerry Tucker, James Kilgannon, Charles Morton; Prod.: Josef Von Sternberg Per Paramount-Publix Corr.; Distr.: Paramount-Publix Corr.; Pri. Pro.: 16 Settembre 1932 35mm. D.: 90′ A24 F/S (Western Electric Noiseless Recording). Bn.
Film Notes
Sternberg combines brilliant visual and sound design, orchestrating his actors through extreme changes in milieu. This cinematic design sense helps deflect attention from the morality-defying story of a woman who saves the husband she loves by selling herself to a man she falls in love with too, never denying that she loves both of them. At once a “fallen woman” story of mother- love-on-the-run, because Dietrich has to flee to keep her child from being taken away from her by her vindictive husband, it is also a quintessentially rags-to-riches story, Helen Faraday’s rise out of pure willpower from ashes to international stardom – her name lights up the paris skies – and a reason to find Dietrich in magnificent costumes as she performs for us again. No one could forget her politically incorrect hot voodoo number. How many ways could Sternberg switch types of story, zigzag back and forth between Europe and America, even moving into the deep south, and portray a sex symbol whose most important love, and heartbreak, is a little boy?