Der Blaue Engel
Der Blaue Engel is a 1930 film based on Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat (1905). It was directed by Josef von Sternberg, and released in both German and English (as The Blue Angel).
In addition to being the first European talkie, Der Blaue Engel launched the career of Marlene Dietrich and introduced the popular song Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt ("From head to toe I am focused on love").
The film tells the story of Professor Emmanuel Rath (played by Emil Jannings), a stern and humourless professor at a German gymnasium (high school), who is openly despised by his pupils, who nickname him Professor Unrath (which translates roughly into English as Professor Rubbish). Discovering that some of his pupils are scretly visiting a sleazy nightclub, The Blue Angel, he goes to see for himself and falls for the sexy caberet singer Lola Lola (Dietrich). After convincing Lola to marry him, Rath leaves his position at the school to travel with Lola's caberet troupe, eventually becoming a part of the act and sliding further and further down a slope of degradation. When the show returns to his home town, he reluctantly appears on stage as the butt of a slapstick act, and is totally humiliated. Off-stage, he discovers Lola having an affair with the show's acrobat. He runs off into the night and is later discovered in his former school room, having apparently committed suicide.
Lola Lola's nightclub act has been satirised on film by Danny Kaye (in drag) as Fraulein Lilli in On the Double and Madeline Kahn as Lili von Schtupp in Blazing Saddles.
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Categories: German films | 1930 films