A stuffy, lonely German college professor, laughed at by his immature pupils, ventures out to a cabaret in the village to berate his students for ogling the female entertainment; instead, he becomes infatuated with the star of the show, chanteuse Lola Lola, and apparently she to him. After marrying the flashy girl, the teacher leaves his profession to travel with the theatrical troupe, but life on the road immediately wears him down. An ugly little story, adapted from Heinrich Mann's novel "Professor Unrath", has a winking-nudging overlay of sexual byplay and was released to great acclaim in both German and English-language versions (this review pertains to the German version with subtitles). Director Josef von Sternberg was already a 15-year veteran of Hollywood movie-making by the time "The Blue Angel" arrived, and yet several sequences (most notably in the first reel and the last) are sloppily constructed and uncertainly paced. Emil Jannings is wonderful as the unloved professor who initially blossoms in the company of streetwise Marlene Dietrich, but his emotional unraveling is awfully quick in coming. Josef von Sternberg is far too sluggish in the beginning, but by the midway point he rushes the narrative...and the audience isn't allowed to get their bearings. As a result, the plot feels like a sadistic series of screw-turns, with no hope (or heart) in sight. **1/2 from ****
Review of Der blaue Engel
