Shady Lady In Three-Quarters Time-That Inkwood Dame- Marlene Dietrich’s “Stage Fright” (1950)-A Film Review

Shady Lady In Three-Quarters Time-That Inkwood Dame- Marlene Dietrich’s “Stage Fright” (1950)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By William Bradley

Stage Struck, starring Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Richard Todd, Michael Wilding, directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1950 

[Normally a great if sullied* director like Sir Alfred Hitchcock would be cited in the headline but since this review links tangentially two aspects of Marlene Dietrich’s career she gets top billing. 

* “Sullied” since earlier this year, 2017, during the height of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes by high level powerful Hollywood men and later others in high positions it was revealed by Tippi Hendron who most famously starred in the Hitchcock classic The Birds that he had incessantly sexually harassed her and moreover ruined her career after she had rebuffed him. Greg Green]

******

Sometimes I can’t figure out the how or why of our new site manager Greg Green’s madness in making assignments. Or in the case here linking two different pieces of work only tangentially related together. Here’s what I mean. A few months ago when I was first hired on by Greg to bring in younger writers and give them decent assignments I happened to be headed to Washington, D.C. on other business when he asked me to stop off at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall and view and review the big Vermeer and friends exhibit (not the official museum title but that is what it is about) of 16^th and 17^th Dutch and Flemish art. (That “younger writers” deserves some additional comment since I am a little older at twenty-eight than the youngest writer Kenny Jacobs but almost two decades younger that what under the old regime, sorry I can’t mention his name under an agreement that we would not do so with Greg, were considered young writers against the old guard who have hovered around since the 1960s-and apparently never got over it-the 1960s that is.)

I did as asked so and did what I thought was a good review given that I didn’t know a damn thing about the subject. The subject of Dutch and Flemish painting which mostly seemed boring and repetitious around family portraits and infinite scenes of fruits, vegetables and game not art in general where my tastes run to the Abstract Expressionists who I don’t know much about either but appeal to my eye. Expressed my like/dislike views and left it at that. I did make a mistake in citing another writer here, an old-timer, Frank Jackman, and his quasi –Marxist views on art and we went back and forth about it as he earnestly tried to “teach” me about this ancient painters and their “milieu,” Frank’s word. You can read that exchange elsewhere under the archival title When Capitalist Was Young….  

That was all well and good. What I had also done on that trip as well was sneak after my business was over to the National Portrait Gallery since it stays open until seven to view some American art that I was interested in when I noticed that there was a photographic display on the career of well-known (and much “drag queen”- imitated) German turned American citizen actress Marlene Dietrich. I thereafter mentioned that exhibit in passing to Greg who must have put that fact in the back of his mind because when he had finished previewing the film under review Stage Fright a thriller by director Alfred Hitchcock starring Ms. Dietrich he cornered me by the water cooler and gave me the assignment. Again I knew nada about Ms. Dietrich other than what I had read at the exhibit not being either a fan of Mr. Hitchcock, hers, or of old time movies. So here it is as good as I can make it without much experience with this kind of film.                              

Marlene Dietrich had a certain style about her, a certain independent don’t give a damn attitude which permeated her role as Charlotte Inkwood, a chanteuse and actress who had both a lover, Johnny, played Richard Todd and a husband she did not much like, wanted to see dead. So, yes, didn’t like much is right if understated like her role here.     That is the drift of the storyline, with that not “much like” unseen husband lying on the living room floor. The first twist and turn of the film which drives it in a certain direction revolved around the very clear implication that Charlotte had done the deed. It sure looked like it as every emotive breath she took when she told lover-boy Johnny about it kept saying guilty as hell. Also in her apparent duplicity looked like she had used Johnny to cover her tracks and make him the fall guy.        

Enter Eve, played by Jane Wyman, a friend of Johnny’s who thought she was in love with him and did everything she could to hide him and who was bewitched by his story that Charlotte had done the deed. Including producing a telltale and fatal bloodstained dress she had allegedly worn to do the deed. By hook or by crook to save darling Johnny Eve directly confronted Charlotte via a ruse as her temporary dresser, an institution in the theater world. Enter Detective Smith, played by Michael Wilding, who turns Eve’s head away romantically from Johnny who made it very clear that he had gone over the edge for Charlotte.

Meanwhile this Smith and his fellow police officers are looking high and low for Johnny boy. Not getting anyway especially since Eve, and her family, not suspecting anything untoward of him were keeping him a step or two ahead of the law. With his help. As things moved toward a climax, toward the capture of on the run Johnny it was revealed via another ruse by the coppers that Johnny, under Charlotte’s cunning bidding had actually killed dear sweet Mr. Inkwood. This revelation occurred while both he and Eve are hiding under the stage of the theater that Charlotte played at. Oh no, Eve was a goner. Not so fast since the clever Ms. Eve was able to put herself out of danger and old Johnny got his just desserts. Of course Charlotte will get hers as well taking as Sandy Salmon says quoting Sam Lowell the big step-off. 

I don’t know if this is a big time Dietrich work although she certainly could emote when the deal went down, could act whatever she needed to act to stay out of the clutches of the law. Perhaps know it all Frank Jackman will give me the same working over he gave me on those freaking Dutch and Flemish painters who grabbed up the great art when they ruled the roost and “teach” me what is what about the legacy of Ms. Dietrich.        

When Marlene Dietrich Strutted Her Stuff And Made All The Drag Queens Weep- Joseph Von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus” (1932)-A Film Review

When Marlene Dietrich Strutted Her Stuff And Made All The Drag Queens Weep- Joseph Von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus” (1932)-A Film Review   

DVD Review

By Will Bradley

Blonde Venus, starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant (yes that Cary Grant), directed by Joseph Von Sternberg, pre-Code 1932  

It is amazing how you get assignments for films sometimes from the site manager Greg Green who is the guy who gives them out these days. Everybody knows, or if not then get it here now, that Phil Larkin and I had been, have been if anybody wants to take up the challenge, in a long term continuing battle royal over who is the “real” James Bond (our respective choices Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan) which has spilled over into other reviews and brought in a couple of other reviewers. A reviewer like Seth Garth who apparently really does believe that our dispute is a tempest in a teapot. Of course, Seth, an old-timer like Phil probably thinks Agatha Christie is the cat’s meow and as well from reading some of his latest reviews he seems to be in a time machine set exclusively around the mid-1960s what with him going on and on about the summer of love, acid rock and the like subjects which got the previous site manager Allan Jackson the boot-and rightly so. I won’t even mention Bart Webber’s remarks since he hasn’t written a worthy review since he found out Humphrey Bogart died.  

Here is the weird part though since the time of my last Bond film review I have not been assigned any film reviews although I have had plenty of other assignments. Some of them like covering a Klimt exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with Mark Rothko thrown and on the political front the brewing controversies around the rise of the Alt-Right which has become increasingly public around the country in the aftermath of the Charlottesville events where they laid bare their fangs. (By the way I was assigned that beat since the massive counter-demonstrations against this movement have been spear-headed by young people and had argued to Greg that giving the assignment to one of the old guard would bring in off-beat and basically negative comparisons to their “glorious” 1960s. It didn’t hurt that I mentioned that these elders would be clueless about the different way, mostly via social media platforms, that the young organize today. Nobody needed to hear about mimeograph machine leaflet production, pay phone telephone calls or plastering the world with posters at midnight.)         

The drought is over now with this film review of one of Marlene Dietrich’s early Hollywood films directed by master director and one- time husband Joseph Von Sternberg Blonde Venus (blonde by virtue of a wig in this case). It was no accident that I received this assignment since in 2017 I was down in Washington on another assignment and decided to peek into the National Portrait Gallery to see what was new something I try to do when down in the “swamp” (the only term from Trump-land which resonates with me). While there I noticed that there was an exhibition featuring Marlene Dietrich and did a short report in this space on her career and her effect on the acting profession centered on her provocative bisexual use of men’s clothing in many of her films (including here) so that she was something of a forerunner and icon for sexual liberation. Moreover Marlene had a certain style Allan Jackson (that former site manager) old me that his growing up friend Timmy Riley, now professionally a “drag queen” under the name Miss Judy Garland out in San Francisco where he runs a famous “drag queen” nightclub told him was a close runner up to Ms. Garland among that entertainment set.      

This film gives an early view of that patterned Dietrich style from the men’ clothing while preforming to that look of utter distain and boredom which she gave off. The “hook” as Sam Lowell who is a pretty cool guy even if kind of ancient and knows a lot about these early films from a lifetime of reviewing likes to tell everybody they should be looking for in a film to hang their hat on is that Marlene after marriage and a child, a young boy, finds out that her scientist husband, Ned, played by wooden stick Herbert Marshall in something of a mismatch, has developed some rare and deadly radiation problem which requires a trip to Europe and a lot of dough to help cure. Marlene to the rescue via her “talent” as a singer and entertainer.  (She can act but the singing bit is hard on the nerves according to an associate who knows a thing or two about music and declared her off-pitch in English and not quite so bad in French.)   

Well not exactly Marlene to the rescue but Nick, Nick Townsend, the fixer man and a guy smitten by Marlene for some reason, played by a very young Cary Grant so this is no slough movie. While Ned is away getting his cure, which unknown to him Nick paid for after services rendered Marlene and Nick are seen cavorting. Except Ned comes back unknown to them and demands the custody of their son. Marlene flees and through a series of further down the social scale maneuvers is the subject of an all- points bulletin initiated by Ned. She finally gives up the kid, her Johnny and she takes a few steps further down the social ladder. As she hits bottom she decides to spring back and restart her career in Europe. That is where forlorn Nick is trying to forget her until he runs into her at a concert and they start up again. No good though since she still pines for her Johnny boy. Eventually she will get him, and Ned, back to the chagrin of Nick. Along the way we get that bunch of songs that are hard on the nerves but which also makes me wonder why those drag queens love to imitate her.     

Stand By Your Man-Marlene Dietrich And Tyrone Powers’ “Witness For The Prosecution” (1957) –A Film Review

Stand By Your Man-Marlene Dietrich And Tyrone Powers’ “Witness For The Prosecution” (1957) –A Film Review

DVD Review

By William Bradley   

Witness For The Prosecution, starring Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Powers, Charles Laughton, based on a story by murder mystery writer Agatha Christie, directed by Billy Wilder, 1957

If you have noticed over the past few months that many of the reviews, film reviews in particular, have material added to them which is not directly, and in many cases not indirectly, related to the film itself that is not happenstance but by design. Not the design of any individual reviewer but by the preferences of new site manager Greg Green and the Editorial Board that was created in the wake of the internal struggle with the old regime and its seemingly increasingly autocratic site manager. The new regime’s idea is two- fold, one, to be more transparently democratic in assignment selection and, two, to demonstrate to the reader the inner workings of a social media site and its day to day workings. Whether one or either of those reasons is satisfied in any particular review is up to the reader to decide.

In any case I have been asked, I won’t say ordered, by Greg Green acting under authority of the Editorial Board, to explain how I got this assignment. (I might add here as well that I came on board this site after the internal struggle had died down so I know only what I have heard as rumor around the “water cooler” about the disputes and the process that led to the new regime.) A couple of months ago I had to go to Washington, D.C. on another assignment for another social media site and was asked by Greg to stop by the National Gallery of Art to take a look at the Vermeer and friends (my term since I forget what the official title was but that will do) exhibition that was being held there. I did a review on it which can be found in the December 2007 archives although I know nothing, or knew nothing about 16^th and 17^th century art, Dutch and Flemish art in its golden age, which Bart Webber who does know about the subject took me to task on.

That trip also started the ball rolling on how I came to be a Marlene Dietrich “expert” even though I know nothing about the old-time black and white films which she starred in or the first thing about her career. This is where the example of how assignments are divvied up here comes into play. During that Washington trip I had also gone for my own purposes to the National Portrait Gallery to meet somebody and noticed walking through the halls that they had a Marlene Dietrich exhibit, mostly photographs, complete with a several page brochure about the life and times of the woman. When I passed in the Vermeer assignment in for editing I mentioned to Greg, my mistake granted, I mentioned in passing something about the Dietrich exhibit. A few days later I was saddled not with an assignment about the exhibit but a film that Greg was hot to have reviewed a thing called Stage Fright starring Ms. Dietrich among others.

Like I said on Vermeer and friends I knew nothing about Ms. Dietrich’s career, her private life, or her aura in films except the photos I had seen and the brochure. I gave Greg what I thought was a pedestrian review which he, after serious editing, posted. A few weeks later now that I was a Dietrich “expert” he cornered me to do the film under review, Witness for the Prosecution, directed by legendary director Billy Wilder. By rights this assignment should have gone to Sam Lowell who is something of a Billy Wilder expert. Mr. Wilder was last seen in this space in a review by Sam of his classic Sunset Boulevard where Sam tried to figure out how Joe Average Hollywood screenwriter wound up dead, very dead in has-been silent film star Norma Desmond’s swimming pool. Greg brushed that objection and suggestion off telling me that I needed to “broaden my horizons,” a favorite expression of his it seems. So here goes.       

Even I know that the minute you mention any storyline, film or book, involving Agatha Christie, that murder, murder most foul is in the air. Usually the murder of a high society or wealthy figure for money, dough ,moola for some off-hand expenses. That is the case here where Vole, the Tyrone Powers role, is picked up for the murder of a wealthy widow whom he had befriended for the prosecution’s contention that he did it for that big haul dough. Worse, worse for Vole anyway, was the hard fact that the old dame left him a bundle. The problem though is that if he doesn’t get out from under that murder rap he won’t get a chance to spent nickel one of the loot.  

Enter two figures to the rescue. First Vole grabs the best barrister in town (the guy in the English justice system who gets to try the cases, murder cases anyway), the sickly Sir Wilfrid Robarts, the Charles Laughton role, who having some doubts  about Vole’s innocence, really about whether he can get his man off and away from the big step-off gallows, nevertheless takes the case. Takes the case once Vole can give an airtight alibi-his wife. His German-born cool and demure wife Christine, the Dietrich role, whom he picked up in some German gin mill during his post-World War II British Occupation duty and brought back to London when he was discharged from the service. Christine would all assumed back up Vole’s story that he could not have been at the murder scene since he was home with his ever-loving wife, her, at the time.

An easy acquittal and all will be well. Whoa, hold on Christine as it turned out showed up at trial not to defend her husband but as a witness for the prosecution of the title. She contradicted Vole’s story to the dismay of the good barrister. Now there is a tradition in Anglo-American jurisprudence that says a wife cannot testify against her husband. Good idea except Christine was already married to a German national when she married Vole. Bigamy and no alibi and no exception so Vole’s goose is cooked although for what purposes who knows.      

Those Christine purposes are what drives the latter part of the film and as the announcer at the end of the film tells the audience, tells me, don’t let on about the ending. Don’t tell whether Christine did what she did for love or money. Don’t tell why Vole desperately needed that withdrawn alibi. All I will tell you is Christine is cool, calm and collected during this whole process. The look that she had groomed over many years and many performances. I will say this one has many twists that will keep you guessing right until the end.

Shady Lady In Three-Quarters Time-That Inkwood Dame- Marlene Dietrich’s “Stage Fright” (1950)-A Film Review

Shady Lady In Three-Quarters Time-That Inkwood Dame- Marlene Dietrich’s “Stage Fright” (1950)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By William Bradley

Stage Struck, starring Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Richard Todd, Michael Wilding, directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1950 

[Normally a great if sullied* director like Sir Alfred Hitchcock would be cited in the headline but since this review links tangentially two aspects of Marlene Dietrich’s career she gets top billing. 

* “Sullied” since earlier this year, 2017, during the height of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes by high level powerful Hollywood men and later others in high positions it was revealed by Tippi Hendron who most famously starred in the Hitchcock classic The Birds that he had incessantly sexually harassed her and moreover ruined her career after she had rebuffed him. Greg Green]

******

Sometimes I can’t figure out the how or why of our new site manager Greg Green’s madness in making assignments. Or in the case here linking two different pieces of work only tangentially related together. Here’s what I mean. A few months ago when I was first hired on by Greg to bring in younger writers and give them decent assignments I happened to be headed to Washington, D.C. on other business when he asked me to stop off at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall and view and review the big Vermeer and friends exhibit (not the official museum title but that is what it is about) of 16^th and 17^th Dutch and Flemish art. (That “younger writers” deserves some additional comment since I am a little older at twenty-eight than the youngest writer Kenny Jacobs but almost two decades younger that what under the old regime, sorry I can’t mention his name under an agreement that we would not do so with Greg, were considered young writers against the old guard who have hovered around since the 1960s-and apparently never got over it-the 1960s that is.)

I did as asked so and did what I thought was a good review given that I didn’t know a damn thing about the subject. The subject of Dutch and Flemish painting which mostly seemed boring and repetitious around family portraits and infinite scenes of fruits, vegetables and game not art in general where my tastes run to the Abstract Expressionists who I don’t know much about either but appeal to my eye. Expressed my like/dislike views and left it at that. I did make a mistake in citing another writer here, an old-timer, Frank Jackman, and his quasi –Marxist views on art and we went back and forth about it as he earnestly tried to “teach” me about this ancient painters and their “milieu,” Frank’s word. You can read that exchange elsewhere under the archival title When Capitalist Was Young….  

That was all well and good. What I had also done on that trip as well was sneak after my business was over to the National Portrait Gallery since it stays open until seven to view some American art that I was interested in when I noticed that there was a photographic display on the career of well-known (and much “drag queen”- imitated) German turned American citizen actress Marlene Dietrich. I thereafter mentioned that exhibit in passing to Greg who must have put that fact in the back of his mind because when he had finished previewing the film under review Stage Fright a thriller by director Alfred Hitchcock starring Ms. Dietrich he cornered me by the water cooler and gave me the assignment. Again I knew nada about Ms. Dietrich other than what I had read at the exhibit not being either a fan of Mr. Hitchcock, hers, or of old time movies. So here it is as good as I can make it without much experience with this kind of film.                              

Marlene Dietrich had a certain style about her, a certain independent don’t give a damn attitude which permeated her role as Charlotte Inkwood, a chanteuse and actress who had both a lover, Johnny, played Richard Todd and a husband she did not much like, wanted to see dead. So, yes, didn’t like much is right if understated like her role here.     That is the drift of the storyline, with that not “much like” unseen husband lying on the living room floor. The first twist and turn of the film which drives it in a certain direction revolved around the very clear implication that Charlotte had done the deed. It sure looked like it as every emotive breath she took when she told lover-boy Johnny about it kept saying guilty as hell. Also in her apparent duplicity looked like she had used Johnny to cover her tracks and make him the fall guy.        

Enter Eve, played by Jane Wyman, a friend of Johnny’s who thought she was in love with him and did everything she could to hide him and who was bewitched by his story that Charlotte had done the deed. Including producing a telltale and fatal bloodstained dress she had allegedly worn to do the deed. By hook or by crook to save darling Johnny Eve directly confronted Charlotte via a ruse as her temporary dresser, an institution in the theater world. Enter Detective Smith, played by Michael Wilding, who turns Eve’s head away romantically from Johnny who made it very clear that he had gone over the edge for Charlotte.

Meanwhile this Smith and his fellow police officers are looking high and low for Johnny boy. Not getting anyway especially since Eve, and her family, not suspecting anything untoward of him were keeping him a step or two ahead of the law. With his help. As things moved toward a climax, toward the capture of on the run Johnny it was revealed via another ruse by the coppers that Johnny, under Charlotte’s cunning bidding had actually killed dear sweet Mr. Inkwood. This revelation occurred while both he and Eve are hiding under the stage of the theater that Charlotte played at. Oh no, Eve was a goner. Not so fast since the clever Ms. Eve was able to put herself out of danger and old Johnny got his just desserts. Of course Charlotte will get hers as well taking as Sandy Salmon says quoting Sam Lowell the big step-off. 

I don’t know if this is a big time Dietrich work although she certainly could emote when the deal went down, could act whatever she needed to act to stay out of the clutches of the law. Perhaps know it all Frank Jackman will give me the same working over he gave me on those freaking Dutch and Flemish painters who grabbed up the great art when they ruled the roost and “teach” me what is what about the legacy of Ms. Dietrich.