Rating: 
Summary: Great For Dietrich Fans
Review: "The Blue Angel" tells the classic story of how the life of a college professor (Emil Jannings) is changed forever after he encounters a showgirl (Marlene Dietrich). Whether or not you've seen the film, you can pretty much predict what happens, but its still a very well-crafted film.As is true of many early sound films, "The Blue Angel" has very sparse dialog. This is particularly true in the beginning. A few words of caution: if you forget to select the English subtitles at the beginning, you'll be several minutes into the film before you even realize they are missing! The DVD features both the German and American versions of the film, which is a great idea. As an added bonus, the DVD includes a frame-by-frame comparison of one scene from the film. Dietrich is great in her career defining role. You can understand why this film made her a star. The interviews and clips also provide the viewer with insight into her career. If you're a fan of Dietrich, this is a must have for your video collection. It's a great tribute to her.
Rating:
Summary: Great For Dietrich Fans
Review: "The Blue Angel" tells the classic story of how the life of a college professor (Emil Jannings) is changed forever after he encounters a showgirl (Marlene Dietrich). Whether or not you've seen the film, you can pretty much predict what happens, but its still a very well-crafted film. As is true of many early sound films, "The Blue Angel" has very sparse dialog. This is particularly true in the beginning. A few words of caution: if you forget to select the English subtitles at the beginning, you'll be several minutes into the film before you even realize they are missing! The DVD features both the German and American versions of the film, which is a great idea. As an added bonus, the DVD includes a frame-by-frame comparison of one scene from the film. Dietrich is great in her career defining role. You can understand why this film made her a star. The interviews and clips also provide the viewer with insight into her career. If you're a fan of Dietrich, this is a must have for your video collection. It's a great tribute to her.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic of world cinema
Review: A German cinema classic from the late Weimar-era, and the film debut of super-sexy Marlene Dietrich, who is stunning in her role as a flirtatious, heartless cabaret singer whose carnal wiles bring an infatuated school teacher to ruin. But then, what is *really* responsible for his downfall? Dietrich as the temptress, his own repressed sexuality and concurrent fetishization of her beauty, or the close-mindedness of the society around them? As with much of the art of this era (in Germany and without), this film depicts the clash of the old world and the new -- the modern, open, crass, liberating and chaotic world of the individual against the older, stable, stifling, communal and "moral" world of the village and church. At any rate, the transformation of actor Emil Jannings from a fusty old humbug into a degraded shell of a man is a dramatic triumph, and the direction, by Josef von Sternberg, is flawless -- filled with darkness, closeness and brooding claustrophia. The new DVD version features both the German and English-language versions (the English version isn't dubbed, it was actually *acted* in English by the same German actors, and has a few interesting differences of moral tone...) and also includes, as an added bonus Marlene Dietrich's first screen test, which is hilarious, and a must-see for her fans.
Rating:
Summary: Never Fall in Love Again
Review: A stunning film made famous by Marlene Dietrich but carried largely by the fantastic performance of Emil Jennings. The stodgy professor gives up everything to be with his blue angel and pays the ultimate price for it. This is a story of the road to ruin as seen through a travelling cabaret. Pay special attention to the clown in the opening scenes. His face says it all. This is a haunting film that is one of the gems of Weimar German productions. It is nice to have both the German and American versions, but the subtitled German version is the one you want to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Never Fall in Love Again
Review: A stunning film made famous by Marlene Dietrich but carried largely by the fantastic performance of Emil Jennings. The stodgy professor gives up everything to be with his blue angel and pays the ultimate price for it. This is a story of the road to ruin as seen through a travelling cabaret. Pay special attention to the clown in the opening scenes. His face says it all. This is a haunting film that is one of the gems of Weimar German productions. It is nice to have both the German and American versions, but the subtitled German version is the one you want to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Dietrich at her best
Review: A stunningly beautiful movie. It was dietrich's first film and she easily and quickly gains her title as a sultry sex goddess that is always just out of reach from her alluring audience. The film is about a school teacher(Emil Jannings) who immediatley falls in love with a stripper(Dietrich)named Lola. Lola utimatley destroys Jannings in this emotionally packed drama. In the end Lola is unscathed by the destruction of her lover and sings tauntingly "Falling In Love Again" this final scene is probably the most memorable in the whole movie. She poses so deliciously its sickening. It's easy to tell that nothing is going to take her down, she is a strong cold-hearted woman who moves from man to man like a praying mantis.
Rating:
Summary: Heaven Protect the Working Woman . . .
Review: Ahem! This film demonstrates what can happen to a dancing girl's fragile and delicate reputation. Poor Lola Lola, a highly regarded and sensitive hoochy-coochy dancer with a travelling cabaret, unwittingly allows herself to be swept up in a whirlwind romance that leads to a tragic marriage to a professor. This eventually ruins her precious career! How brutal and cruel life can be to woman! And what does...Professor Rath, do? Crawls off in the night, and crashes behind his old school desk -- and falls asleep. See? He never really wanted to marry her in the first place, the old ingrate! (No wonder Hitler made Emil Jannings, Minister of Culture under the Third Reich.) Instead, he leaves poor old lonely Lola Lola to sit backwards on a chair singing to herself as the movie ends. What a shame. A must for all true feminists. Fight the oppressor!
Rating:
Summary: The Blue Angel Still Holds Up Today
Review: Amazingly, this seventy-plus-year-old movie classic is as fresh and entertaining as any film currently released. This DVD presents the best quality of The Blue Angel I have ever seen, in two completely restored versions (English & German) plus wonderful photos and commentary. You may be uneager to buy this DVD set due to the fact that a lot of video tape versions are under ($), but let me tell you, this is worth every penny. Includes as bonuses: a great 1929 Dietrich screen test, a brief interview, and Dietrich performing songs from the movie in the 1960's/1970's. A film-buff treat!
Rating:
Summary: The degradation of Professor Roth by Lola Loa
Review: Directed by Josef von Sternberg in 1930, "The Blue Angel" is the most blatant example of degradation in film. This movie from the wanning days of the Weimar Republic was one of the first films to specifically display the degradation of a man by a woman. Emil Jannings plays Professor Immanuel Rath, who teaches at an all-boys high school, where all the students hate him and make fun of him behind his back. One day Rath confiscates a bawdy picture of the sexy, provocative nightclub siren Lola Lola, played by Marlene Dietrich. Rath goes to the nightclub to save his students from moral decay, but instead he becomes obsessed with Lola Lola, with her top hat and long legs in stockings singing "Falling in Love Again." Lola Lola plays with the Professor, telling him he is not bad looking and throwing her underwear at him. In a passionate outburst out of a life of repressed indifference, Rath proposes to Lola Lola. After laughing hysterically, she accepts. The result is that Rath first loses any respect his students might have had for him and then his job. The final scene presents Rath at his absolute nadir, reduced to dressing like a clown in a pathetic attempt to just survive. "The Blue Angel" is adapted from a novel by Heinrich Mann and works quite well as an allegory of Germany at the end of the 1920's. Professor Rath represents the deterioration of the old order in Germany, whle Lola Lola symbolizes the new generation's lack of values and moral perversions. The film's message was that unless Germany did something to save itself the nation would becoming as pathetic as Professor Rath. Ironically, Germany was saved that particular fate in favor of something much, much worse. However, today "The Blue Angel" is known more for establishing the on-screen persona of Marlene Dietrich (check out the documentary "Marlene" for a fascinating look at the woman behind that persona).
Rating:
Summary: The degradation of Professor Roth by Lola Loa
Review: Directed by Josef von Sternberg in 1930, "The Blue Angel" is the most blatant example of degradation in film. This movie from the wanning days of the Weimar Republic was one of the first films to specifically display the degradation of a man by a woman. Emil Jannings plays Professor Immanuel Rath, who teaches at an all-boys high school, where all the students hate him and make fun of him behind his back. One day Rath confiscates a bawdy picture of the sexy, provocative nightclub siren Lola Lola, played by Marlene Dietrich. Rath goes to the nightclub to save his students from moral decay, but instead he becomes obsessed with Lola Lola, with her top hat and long legs in stockings singing "Falling in Love Again." Lola Lola plays with the Professor, telling him he is not bad looking and throwing her underwear at him. In a passionate outburst out of a life of repressed indifference, Rath proposes to Lola Lola. After laughing hysterically, she accepts. The result is that Rath first loses any respect his students might have had for him and then his job. The final scene presents Rath at his absolute nadir, reduced to dressing like a clown in a pathetic attempt to just survive. "The Blue Angel" is adapted from a novel by Heinrich Mann and works quite well as an allegory of Germany at the end of the 1920's. Professor Rath represents the deterioration of the old order in Germany, whle Lola Lola symbolizes the new generation's lack of values and moral perversions. The film's message was that unless Germany did something to save itself the nation would becoming as pathetic as Professor Rath. Ironically, Germany was saved that particular fate in favor of something much, much worse. However, today "The Blue Angel" is known more for establishing the on-screen persona of Marlene Dietrich (check out the documentary "Marlene" for a fascinating look at the woman behind that persona).
| 
