Mjeteconer Just perfect...

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

blanche-2 I'm not questioning what happened with "Blonde Venus." I'm asking a deeper question. Though I like many of today's stars, when you see a Dietrich or a Grant, they make the stars of today look like - well, I guess you'd say plain vanilla."Blonde Venus" stars the glorious Marlene Dietrich, a goddess if there ever was one, beautiful, glamorous, magnetic, leggy, with a beautiful speaking voice and a nice way with a line or a song. When the movie starts, she's a German cabaret singer, Helen Farraday, who is skinny-dipping with her colleagues when some hikers come by, one of whom is Ned (Herbert Marshall). They eventually marry and have a son (Dickie Moore).However, Ned develops radiation poisoning and needs an expensive treatment in order to be cured. To get the money, Helen returns to her life as a cabaret singer, and she becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. But the money isn't happening fast enough. She finally gets the rest of the money by taking up with the wealthy Nick Townsend (Cary Grant). He falls madly in love with her.When Ned returns cured and learns she was unfaithful, he intends to divorce her. Afraid of losing her son, Helen grabs him and leaves. She is constantly one step ahead of the police. Soon, she is unable to work as the police are haunting the cabarets, and she becomes destitute and likely a prostitute. When she is caught, she gives up her son to Ned, goes to Paris, and rebuilds her career.Helen ultimately reconnects with Nick, but she wants to see her child.Dietrich is dazzling, singing "Hot Voodoo," "You Little So-and-So," and "I Couldn't Be Annoyed." As Nick, Grant is not the Cary Grant that we knew later on; he hadn't yet invented his Cary Grant persona. He was not given much direction by von Sternberg, and frankly, doesn't make a huge impression. He did attribute von Sternberg for telling him to part his hair on the opposite side, which he did for the rest of his life.Dietrich's best scenes are with her son, but she gives a very sympathetic performance.So here's my question: What happened to personality in movies? In opera? We have great acting, versatility, wonderful singing, but it feels like what we once called star quality is gone. We still have interesting-looking people, but they're not usually stars, they're supporting players. Do audiences not want to make an emotional investment in a performer? I don't know. I only that Ayn Rand, though many people disagree with her philosophy, was prescient when, in The Fountainhead, she predicted the elevation of mediocrity. I don't blame the actors. I blame something else -- I just don't know what. Even though "Blonde Venus" isn't a great film, it features a larger than life star with larger than life looks. That's gone. As Bette Davis said, "Actors today want to be real. But real acting is larger than life."

MARIO GAUCI This is perhaps the slightest (and least engaging) of the Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich collaborations – being a mother love tale that, frankly, were a dime a dozen around this period! Still, the director's pictorial sense (best served by the décor, ranging from lab equipment in the early scenes to an expressively-lit bamboo hut for the star's refuge in her downtrodden phase) and flair for the outré (notably the opening skinny-dipping sequence, a pure pre-Code moment, and the celebrated "Hot Voodoo" number where a gorilla performer does a striptease to reveal the star underneath!) make all the difference! Unfortunately, co-star Cary Grant made his sole film with either in his 'baptism of fire' year and, consequently, his acting here is rather stiff…not that the nominal male lead – dullish, middle-aged Herbert Marshall (already on his way to becoming a character actor) – is any better, however! Dietrich herself tries, but she is decidedly too glamorous to be convincing in this type of soggy stuff. The protagonist is a German cabaret artist whom scientist Marshall meets and marries while doing research in her country; cut to a few years later, they are now living in America with a child in tow for whom, of course, she has given up her career. Still, this talent comes in handy once again when it transpires that Marshall has contracted radium poisoning and rapidly requires a sizeable sum in order to undergo treatment abroad. Begrudgingly, he acquiesces to Dietrich resuming her stage-act but, having now made a name for herself under the titular billing, she also attracts the attention of millionaire playboy Grant; the woman willingly gives in to him (having grown fond of the limelight and the high life that comes with it) but, when the fully-recovered Marshall arrives home ahead of schedule, all hell breaks loose. He files for divorce and also requests custody of the boy but, instead of handing him over, she decides to take it on the lam with the kid! Living precariously for a while, she is eventually tracked down by a private investigator and, managing then to land another singing job, inevitably runs into Grant one more time; however, upon playing her American hometown, she decides to pay Marshall a visit – with the younger man finally realizing that she belongs with her husband after all and graciously opting to step out of the picture. Incidentally, just as her eternal rival Greta Garbo was ideal for a particular type of film (and retired when audiences would not accept her in any other genre), Dietrich here treads largely unsuitable ground – though, as I said, Sternberg was too much of an auteur to allow the melodrama inherent in the plot to cramp (for long) the overt stylishness he consummately brought to whatever material came his way. That said, Dietrich took a necessary breather from his Svengali-like hold (not least in view of the disappointing box-office returns of both this one and DISHONORED {1931}) – only to subsequently re-emerge with their most grandiose (if, commercially, no more successful) effort yet i.e. THE SCARLET EMPRESS (1934)... P.S. For some reason, I never caught BLONDE VENUS on Italian TV (unlike the rest of the Sternberg-Dietrich series), so that I first got to watch this on local TV in the mid-1990s via an infrequent prime-time broadcast; then, in 2000, I acquired an original PAL VHS of it – which was eventually rendered obsolete when the upgrade to the R1 DVD (as part of the 5-film 2-disc MARLENE DIETRICH: THE GLAMOUR COLLECTION set) was made.

Luis Guillermo Cardona We do not know, that moment in history, we lost the direction and the feeling of having made some of the worst paradigms we have taken as a way of life. How many times will God - and even the devil himself - his brow contracted a smile, to hear men say: "This is mine," "She's mine","He's mine." ¿When will we understand that all have diminishing the love? If it restricts your freedom, not for your sake but because I need you... and so is my love. ¡Who cares if you're not happy as long as I'm happy! I will compensate you somehow. ¡What can I do if the world is full of interesting people! But, as you're concerned, the only (only) that may be interested, is me. You leave or I'll kill you if you are unfaithful... but do you know? I, too, how many times I've wanted to tell you the infidel!... And I would confess that sometimes I have been: thinking (million times!), word (hundreds of times!) and work (a few times).On a planet with millions of beautiful and interesting beings, ¿how one person belong to?, ¿How do swear that I will be yours? ¡Illusory promises! We are a couple standing in a bucket full of lies. Problems, tantrums, separation... raged in the day to day because of the possession. ¿What is that you can own? Become well this question. ¿Someone I can have?, ¿I would allow someone who owns me? Every time you flow, and generate ideas, feelings, words, actions... ¿Can someone "own" (have), except occasionally, all you are? "Blonde Venus" is a nice movie that I have moved to these reflections. It is the story of a woman who loves her husband, but, wanting to help, she meets another man who is sexy, gallant, generous, rich, and no possessiveness. He gives all of himself and is happy to have her what she wants to give. And when he feels she wants to return to the other, he walks away. No calls, no require, no charges... just accept. THIS IS CALLED LOVE! This is how he truly loves.Legitimate husband, in contrast, takes revenge on her, leaves and stalks to remove your child, you bitter and puts on a face an opportunistic world that becomes cold as an iceberg. And when it succeeds legitimacy, one feels that won the absurd laws of society, but also feels that lost love. We grant the benefit of the doubt because there is no reconciliation and forgiveness. Let us hope that love is born again. The Dietrich strikes a role that impacts and moving our fibers. Runs her life and gives an example of character and resilience. And, as usual, the teacher Josef von Sternberg delights with a proposal not exotic, sensual, irreverent, and scenarios perfectly romantic decorating adventure.This film is making history. Do not miss it.

Cristi_Ciopron I am compelled to admit the Venus is not as bad as I expected. It is simply a quite mediocre melodrama by one of the most overrated directors—Sternberg, a nullity that has always got an undeserved praise for completely illusory merits. I am in the maybe odd situation of being a big Dietrich fan who finds almost physically disgusting almost of the movies she made with Sternberg. But "Venus" is an exception. In this film Dietrich does her best; Grant is quite unremarkable and banal. The lack of pace of Sternberg's films should be proverbial, and also his complete lack of perspicacity. For me, these films are only trite and often boring slapdash. Sternberg's extremely primitive and rudimentary cinema is as flawed and wrong as ever. I know Sternberg's enormous prestige; but I also know that none of the critics that I admire has ever written a line about Sternberg's films. For me,this says enough. I can though find a merit of S-b's cinema: the exciting titles (Morocco, Shanghai-Express, The Scarlet Empress, etc.)."Venus"' script is worse than crap—it is execrably bad. The pace is rather inexistent. The characters have no substance whatsoever and miraculously uninteresting .The same cheap slapdash. The only chance this movie has is exploiting Mrs. MD's sexuality. Unfortunately, not even her performance is very good; it is almost good, in her own camp way, but disappointingly incoherent—sometimes, it is her brand of arrogant bitchy sexuality, and then it is like caught in the director's libidinous amorality. She knew, when she was allowed by the movie, to make sharp and clear roles—a bit simple, perhaps, but they were OK like that. Her best roles were those of ambiguous women—but the roles were limpid because they were simple and compact. It was always more about her physic. Here,in "Venus",her role is totally incoherent. We see the intention—the repenting errant wife—but the story does not show this. Dietrich was never a great actress; she was a sexually adored actress. She had the chance of an epoch interested in the magic of the sexuality, and she was one of the remarkable vamps of that epoch."Cora" is the only fine character,I wish she had a bigger role.Anyway, "Venus" is a nice melodrama ;Shanghai-Express is much worse, and The Scarlet Empress is the most stupid. Sternberg's inability, in-aptitude of seizing his characters' inner life, the psychological movements and the real dynamics of the souls is total. He had a unique lack of lightness, tact, flair and perspicacity–he was stilted, boring and left-handed.