The Dietrich Effect

Dear LWM readers, I have a confession to make.

I've been cheating.

Yes, it's true. I have been cheating on my movie idol Joan Crawford with another movie idol. I've tried to keep my thoughts centered on Crawford's shoulders and eyebrows, but I have become obsessed with another set of eyebrows. And those pencil-thin works of art belong to none other than teutonic sex goddess, Marlene Dietrich.

Dietrich has always been one of my favorites. Her ability to draw focus by simply raising an eyebrow or blowing an erotic puff of smoke, her nonchalant accent both murdering and sensualizing her English dialogue, the distinctive angles of that camera-loving face- the Dietrich cinematic mystique is enthralling. I recently got the new box-set of her work with director Josef von Sternberg, and I've found my movie thoughts engrossed with the career of this tempestuous force of the silver screen.

The new box set contains Dietrich's earliest Hollywood product, and it's really interesting to watch how her acting style changed over time. In her first American film Morocco (1930) (The Blue Angel (1930) although shot first, wasn't released in America until after Morocco) Dietrich is still finding her way both in acting and with the English language. Legend has it that von Sternberg literally had her count moments and steps in between actions and dialogue. Her eye movements, her gestures, her dialogue- everything was planned out. Yet somehow her performance is electric with an intense freshness thanks to Dietrich's aggressively laissez faire screen presence and visible lust for that thing called movie stardom. Her musical numbers, in particular, flash and the famous tux kissing scene helped create the any-sexual persona that would dominate the rest of her career.

By the time Dietrich starred in her final film with von Sternberg, The Devil is a Woman (1935), her performance has gone from planned to crafted. She no longer has that bit of uncertainty counting beats. Every eyebrow motion and purse of the lips is part of the confetti-covered artwork that von Sternberg is making. It's beautiful to watch- but that spark of the unknown- the sexy danger of what Dietrich might do feels lost amongst the mantillas and masks. Von Sternberg's Galatea has become a statue again- an exquisite statue- but a statue nonetheless.

After Dietrich ended her artistic partnership with von Sternberg the debate heated up as to whether Dietrich needed von Sternberg, or von Sternberg needed Dietrich. The easy answer is Dietrich did just fine without von Sternberg. True she was probably never photographed as sumptuously as she was in Shanghai Express (1932) and The Scarlet Empress (1934), but from an acting perspective, her later works show a relaxed quality that von Sternberg's compulsively controlled direction didn't nurture. In Destry Rides Again (1939), A Foreign Affair(1948), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Touch of Evil (1958), and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), Dietrich proved she didn't need von Sternberg to create an indelible acting performance.

Even in slighter faire like Tay Garnett's Seven Sinners (1940), Dietrich is so devil-may-care as the Sadie Thompson-esque Bijou, she brings a wickedly romantic sparkle out of the normally frontier-y John Wayne. Dietrich was the essential secret ingredient no matter who directed her.

Now if only there were a movie with Dietrich and Crawford in it...