German Der Blaue Engel; directed by Josef von Sternberg, it was the first major German sound movie.
Emil Jannings is a professor at the Gymnasium (advanced high school) whose pupils are becoming more and more unruly; he catches them with some girly pictures from the local cabaret, the Blue Angel. Something tweaks his interest, so he starts visiting the place and falls for the floozy (Marlene Dietrich). This leads him into a long downward spiral toward degradation and humiliation, from which there is seemingly no recovery.
The music has the typical Berlin sound of the Weimar Republic. The film is excellently filmed, and the dramatic work by Jannings is unsurpassable.
However, it is not clear that there is a point. Surely it is not a moralistic “don’t visit the cabaret — look what might become of you.” One gropes for some qualification — the professor’s prudishness? his long deferral of love and marriage? his loneliness?
The camera work, characterization, and music make it something that needs to be seen; but more as a vignette, a study, a skit: like a project in cinema school to illustrate or practice technique, rather than a meaningful drama in its own right.
