The Blue Angel PG

“A masterpiece of erotic obsession” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Back in cinemas as part of the BFI’s season of films celebrating the ground-breaking, imaginative, and astonishingly modern films produced in Germany during the Weimar Republic, The Blue Angel stars Marlene Dietrich as the raunchy, witty and self-possessed Lola, a cabaret singer who exudes erotic power.

‘Beware of blonde women,’ she sings, but no one heeds this advice – neither her schoolboy fans, nor their sexually repressed teacher whose moral outrage dissolves in lust.

Loosely based on a novel by Heinrich Mann, Sternberg’s masterpiece is a dazzling construct of enigmatic lighting, décor and sound, featuring real-life stars of Weimar cabaret and the now classic songs of Friedrich Hollaender. For leftist critics it lacked satirical edge, yet it conjures a transgressive realm that recalls the paintings of George Grosz and Otto Dix. An enduring classic; its subversive vitality is undiminished.