No film created in 1932 can be separated from its historical relevance, no matter how classic the cinematic values. Talking pictures had only just been invented, and color was years away. Everything in cinema at that time was either experimental (innovations in lighting, multiple cameras, location shooting) or an extension of traditional stage drama.
To talk, therefore, about things like stock characterization or racial stereotyping is to create anachronistic straw men in an attempt to change history. It would make more sense instead to try to place what happened either on the set or in the world at large together in one bag. One cannot understand or appreciate the contributions of larger-than-life figures like von Sternberg or Dietrich without contrasting this film with their "Der Blaue Engel" of only two years previous (yet light years away from this production in terms of contemporaneous world events).
In the same vein, anyone unacquainted with or uninterested in such ancient historical facts as why these Germans had recently moved to Hollywood would do well to sample disparate films made either just before or just after this one like "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Rain," or "Flying Down to Rio" in order to get the feel of what appealed to audiences then as well as how fictional characters were created. For example, compare Dietrich's Lil to Joan Crawford's role in "Rain."
I am reminded when reading some of these comments of something said to me by my nephew's rather ditzy wife some years ago when I was admiring a finely restored Model A at a car show, "But why did people in 1932 want to drive such an OLD car?"
To talk, therefore, about things like stock characterization or racial stereotyping is to create anachronistic straw men in an attempt to change history. It would make more sense instead to try to place what happened either on the set or in the world at large together in one bag. One cannot understand or appreciate the contributions of larger-than-life figures like von Sternberg or Dietrich without contrasting this film with their "Der Blaue Engel" of only two years previous (yet light years away from this production in terms of contemporaneous world events).
In the same vein, anyone unacquainted with or uninterested in such ancient historical facts as why these Germans had recently moved to Hollywood would do well to sample disparate films made either just before or just after this one like "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Rain," or "Flying Down to Rio" in order to get the feel of what appealed to audiences then as well as how fictional characters were created. For example, compare Dietrich's Lil to Joan Crawford's role in "Rain."
I am reminded when reading some of these comments of something said to me by my nephew's rather ditzy wife some years ago when I was admiring a finely restored Model A at a car show, "But why did people in 1932 want to drive such an OLD car?"