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The Blue Angel (1930, Germ.)
(aka Der Blaue Engel)
In Josef von Sternberg's erotic drama, a star-making
role for Marlene Dietrich, and the first feature-length German full-talkie:
- the captivating and alluring image of leggy, black-stockinged
temptress Lola Lola Frohlich (Marlene Dietrich) astride a barre
with a tilted top hat singing "Falling in Love Again (Can't
Help It)" (her signature song) in a sleazy German nightclub
cellar (named The Blue Angel Cabaret); she tilted her head to the
side, leaned backwards, and grasped one gartered-stockinged leg
on bare thighs with her arms; Lyrics: "Falling in love again,
Never wanted to, What's a girl to do?, I can't help it, Love's
always been my game, Play it how I may, I was made that way, I
can't help it"
- her entrancement of college prep HS teacher Professor
Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) in the audience
- the degradation scene in which once-dignified but
now disheveled, disgraced and broken Prof. Rath was forced to crow
like a rooster in a pathetic clown act for her cabaret troupe's stage
show, as Lola was in the arms of her new love interest - strongman
Mazeppa (Hans Albers) and kissing him off-stage
- in the film's sad conclusion, the eventual death of
a very destitute and almost insane Rath - consumed by jealousy, hate,
remorse, and regret about his abject life of servitude; his body
was found draped over his old classroom's master desk where he once
taught, with his clenched hand gripping the side of the furniture
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Lola Lola "Falling in Love Again"
(Marlene Dietrich)
Prof. Rath
(Emil Jannings)
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