I'm not questioning what happened with "Blonde Venus." I'm asking a deeper question. Though I like many of today's stars, when you see a Dietrich or a Grant, they make the stars of today look like - well, I guess you'd say plain vanilla."Blonde Venus" stars the glorious Marlene Dietrich, a goddess if there ever was one, beautiful, glamorous, magnetic, leggy, with a beautiful speaking voice and a nice way with a line or a song. When the movie starts, she's a German cabaret singer, Helen Farraday, who is skinny-dipping with her colleagues when some hikers come by, one of whom is Ned (Herbert Marshall). They eventually marry and have a son (Dickie Moore).However, Ned develops radiation poisoning and needs an expensive treatment in order to be cured. To get the money, Helen returns to her life as a cabaret singer, and she becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. But the money isn't happening fast enough. She finally gets the rest of the money by taking up with the wealthy Nick Townsend (Cary Grant). He falls madly in love with her.When Ned returns cured and learns she was unfaithful, he intends to divorce her. Afraid of losing her son, Helen grabs him and leaves. She is constantly one step ahead of the police. Soon, she is unable to work as the police are haunting the cabarets, and she becomes destitute and likely a prostitute. When she is caught, she gives up her son to Ned, goes to Paris, and rebuilds her career.Helen ultimately reconnects with Nick, but she wants to see her child.Dietrich is dazzling, singing "Hot Voodoo," "You Little So-and-So," and "I Couldn't Be Annoyed." As Nick, Grant is not the Cary Grant that we knew later on; he hadn't yet invented his Cary Grant persona. He was not given much direction by von Sternberg, and frankly, doesn't make a huge impression. He did attribute von Sternberg for telling him to part his hair on the opposite side, which he did for the rest of his life.Dietrich's best scenes are with her son, but she gives a very sympathetic performance.So here's my question: What happened to personality in movies? In opera? We have great acting, versatility, wonderful singing, but it feels like what we once called star quality is gone. We still have interesting-looking people, but they're not usually stars, they're supporting players. Do audiences not want to make an emotional investment in a performer? I don't know. I only that Ayn Rand, though many people disagree with her philosophy, was prescient when, in The Fountainhead, she predicted the elevation of mediocrity. I don't blame the actors. I blame something else -- I just don't know what. Even though "Blonde Venus" isn't a great film, it features a larger than life star with larger than life looks. That's gone. As Bette Davis said, "Actors today want to be real. But real acting is larger than life."

This is the Marlene Dietrich film which opens with six supposedly naked women swimming and later her stripping out of the bulky gorilla suit on stage to sing a gauche incomprehensible number. Having got those admittedly interesting bits out of the way what we have here is an incredibly well made work of Art from Paramount's wonder year of 1932, complete with problems but so simple that it defies any meaningful criticism.Herbert Marshall contracts some radioactive disease, his devoted wife Dietrich as ex nightclub singer knows how to raise the enormous sum of USD 300 to send him to Europe to be cured – and Cary Grant as a rich politician is implied to be the lucky guy! This eventually leads to a falling out and Dietrich and son are on the run from Marshall. It's a simple pre-Code soap opera directed by Josef von Sternberg, who managed to impart an atmosphere, majesty and his usual Code of Ethics to the proceedings that set it apart from most of the others from the time. Every actor is at the top of their game from Dietrich down to the uncredited Hattie McDaniel, the production values fantastic, with photography, posing and lighting thoughtful and gleaming at all times. Marshalls' beetling blackening brows were never used to greater dramatic effect than in here; Sternberg already knew how best to portray Dietrich. Favourite bits: the almost unbelievable elegance and style of Dietrich and Grant and the interior of his house when Marshall was away – a masterclass of film making in ninety seconds, but unfortunately immediately followed by a rather clumsy back projection; You Little So And So by Whiting & Robin droned by Dietrich at the elegant Star Club; the frank scenes in New Orleans with the skinny and hopeful Sidney Toler; the charming inevitable climax but enigmatic ending.It's a straightforward love and honour tale handled so expertly the ninety minutes fly by. I do wonder sometimes how Sternberg would film this and his other classics if he could return today; I probably know my answer to this but could the complex technology and looser morals of today lead him to make a better film, or should we be grateful for the simpler technology and greater knowledge of and adherence to a moral code that could help produce such wondrous films like this?

Josef Von Sternberg's films of the 1930s are some of the most unique ever made. Sternberg was one of the most promising directors of the 1920s, but of course there was a paradigm shift with the advent of sound near the end of the decade, causing most filmmakers to abandon the experimental cinematic techniques so instrumental to the most successful silent films. Dialogue heavy films in which visuals took a backseat to plot and characterization became the norm. Sternberg seems to have been the only director to integrate sound successfully into his normal filmmaking routine without completely changing his style. Thus, in a film like Blonde Venus Sternberg still employed his slick editing techniques and Impressionistic camera tricks such as superimpositions. As simple as this sounds, it's quite off-putting to see a film like this when expecting the relatively primitive filmmaking techniques of the popular films of the 1930s. While Sternberg naturally evolved his style and progressed through the '30s in his own way, nearly every other filmmaker regressed to a more stagy film style. It's for this reason that Sternberg's films of the 1930s look so different: this is an offshoot of film evolution that unfortunately didn't have much influence on contemporary films; what you see when you watch Sternberg's films from this era is the style that films could have moved toward if the retreat to the old dramatic forms hadn't occurred. So, what makes Blonde Venus off-putting? Well, in spite of its relative lack of length (it's only ninety-minutes long) a lot of ground is covered in this film. There's a love triangle established early on which is resolved almost before it's fully formed and the plot doesn't slow down as a character goes from riches to rags and becomes a fugitive from justice in just a few moments; in fact, things just speed up from there and in twenty minutes or so there's a manhunt that stretches across several states, several close brushes with the law, and a dramatic showdown about child custody before the character hits bottom, heads to Europe, and quickly vaults back to riches again. This is the sort of plot that would never be told in less than twice this amount of time today, in fact I've seen entire seasons of television shows with less plot packed into them. Throughout all this, Sternberg's visual panache guarantees the viewer's interest and, at the same time, narrative coherence is easily maintained. There's even some good thematic material here about self-sacrifice and women's roles in the period. Like most of Sternberg's films from this decade, Blonde Venus offers an embarrassment of riches when compared to its contemporaries in spite of a pacing style that will be difficult for viewers used to (non- Sternberg) films for this era to adjust to. For a viewer with a bit of context, this is a wonderful glimpse at what film could have been.

We do not know, that moment in history, we lost the direction and the feeling of having made some of the worst paradigms we have taken as a way of life. How many times will God - and even the devil himself - his brow contracted a smile, to hear men say: "This is mine," "She's mine","He's mine." ¿When will we understand that all have diminishing the love? If it restricts your freedom, not for your sake but because I need you... and so is my love. ¡Who cares if you're not happy as long as I'm happy! I will compensate you somehow. ¡What can I do if the world is full of interesting people! But, as you're concerned, the only (only) that may be interested, is me. You leave or I'll kill you if you are unfaithful... but do you know? I, too, how many times I've wanted to tell you the infidel!... And I would confess that sometimes I have been: thinking (million times!), word (hundreds of times!) and work (a few times).On a planet with millions of beautiful and interesting beings, ¿how one person belong to?, ¿How do swear that I will be yours? ¡Illusory promises! We are a couple standing in a bucket full of lies. Problems, tantrums, separation... raged in the day to day because of the possession. ¿What is that you can own? Become well this question. ¿Someone I can have?, ¿I would allow someone who owns me? Every time you flow, and generate ideas, feelings, words, actions... ¿Can someone "own" (have), except occasionally, all you are? "Blonde Venus" is a nice movie that I have moved to these reflections. It is the story of a woman who loves her husband, but, wanting to help, she meets another man who is sexy, gallant, generous, rich, and no possessiveness. He gives all of himself and is happy to have her what she wants to give. And when he feels she wants to return to the other, he walks away. No calls, no require, no charges... just accept. THIS IS CALLED LOVE! This is how he truly loves.Legitimate husband, in contrast, takes revenge on her, leaves and stalks to remove your child, you bitter and puts on a face an opportunistic world that becomes cold as an iceberg. And when it succeeds legitimacy, one feels that won the absurd laws of society, but also feels that lost love. We grant the benefit of the doubt because there is no reconciliation and forgiveness. Let us hope that love is born again. The Dietrich strikes a role that impacts and moving our fibers. Runs her life and gives an example of character and resilience. And, as usual, the teacher Josef von Sternberg delights with a proposal not exotic, sensual, irreverent, and scenarios perfectly romantic decorating adventure.This film is making history. Do not miss it.