DVD
Blonde Venus
Call Number
- DVD DRAMA (CEN)
Edition
DVD special edition.
Languages
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Performers
Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Dickie Moore, Gene Morgan, Rita La Roy.
Publication Information
[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2018]
Physical Description
1 videodisc (94 minutes) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in.
Audience
Not rated.
Summary
"Josef von Sternberg returned Marlene Dietrich to the stage in Blonde Venus, both a glittering spectacle and a sweeping melodrama about motherly devotion. Unfolding episodically, the film tells the story of Helen, once a German chanteuse, now an American housewife, who resurrects her stage career after her husband falls ill; she then becomes the mistress of a millionaire, in a slide from loving martyr to dishonored woman. Despite production difficulties courtesy of the Hays Office, the director's baroque visual style shines, as do one of the most memorable musical numbers in all of cinema and a parade of visionary costumes by von Sternberg and Dietrich's longtime collaborator Travis Banton."--Container.
Notes
Originally produced as a motion picture in 1932.
Issued in a boxed set: Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood.
Special features: New, restored 4K digital transfer ; new interview with costume designer and historian Deborah Nadoolman Landis about the films' costumes and their designer, the legendary Travis Banton ; new interview with Deutsche Kinemathek curator Silke Ronneburg about the museum's Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin ; The fashion side of Hollywood, a 1935 publicity short featuring Dietrich and Banton.